Nuremberg beach party: Matthias Davids delivers Wagner’s ‘Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ to the Musikantenstadl in Bayreuth.
The final image hits home. Andrew D. Edwards turns Wagner’s festival grounds on the Pegnitz into a pop beach party. An inflated colourful cow hangs upside down above the stage, a halo of light bulbs forms the sun on the horizon of a show staircase like a 7-metre Musikantenstadl, and the population, some in traditional costume, some in jeans and shirts with red pointed caps, unite to form a garish fan zone that dances along to the show choreography. It’s too made-up to be natural cheerfulness, but not so exaggerated that you might be afraid of the prole in the bourgeoisie. And the joke with Merkel doubles, Raute and Gottschalk knock-offs is long since hackneyed.
It doesn’t even get dangerous during the night-time brawl in the previous act, where once again the nightcaps and noodle-wood-wielding women are referenced, but with Wagner we should be alarmed by the all too thin veneer of the previously ritually invoked civilisation, which slips into chaos through rioting.
Director Matthias Davids does not want to see any of this in political terms. In doing so, he underestimates Wagner, who inscribed social criticism and self-irony into this comedy from the very first drafts. Thomas Mann captured this so aptly in the sentence: ‘Wagner’s art is the most sensational self-portrayal and self-criticism of the German character.’
At Davids & Edwards and set designer Susanne Hubrich‘s, we find ourselves in a kind of toy land. In the first act, with its narrow giant staircase and a small church attached, the master singers meet in the church after the service. Inside, it looks almost like the Festspielhaus, with typical lamps and folding seats. Here, the Meistersingers don the coats and caps of Schlaraffia, a deadly serious men’s fraternity devoted to humour, with which Wagner never had anything to do.
Here, as there, we see humourless clubbing with statutes from the vault and humanising ideas, such as Ulrich Eisslinger (Matthew Newlin) constantly disappearing into the smoking room or Balthasar Zorn (Daniel Jenz) working his way towards the buffet.
It would have been more important to question patriarchal impositions such as Pogner’s idea of offering his daughter Eva as a prize for the next singing competition. A few of the apprentices at least express their outrage through their facial expressions, but all this pantomime of adult choir singers as apprentices (and at least apprentices who no longer have to play boys) looks so embarrassingly old-fashioned. Why aren’t these trainees allowed to move like young people do today?
In the second act, there is the usual messing around and fighting in front of a toy half-timbered wall with moving parts and a yellow telephone box, which in some places today serves as a book lending library. The cobbler’s workshop in the third act is a round building cut off at waist height, full of tools and a pile of shoes in the middle, which collapses when Beckmesser reaches for women’s shoes there – funny. No idea for the important conflicting feelings in the Eva-Sachs-Stolzing triangle.
At the beach party, one is then added. Eva Pogner’s sudden conversion. Throughout all the acts, she has shown no awareness or even resistance to the patriarchal abuse of her person, still smiling sweetly from the bouquet of flowers in which she was placed as the main prize of the singing competition. She also did not react when her chosen Stolzing refused the title of master singer after winning the contest. Only when Sachs won him over with his admonishing speech about traditional values and was able to present him with the chain did Eva suddenly break out of her role, give the chain back to her father and run off with Stolzing. This has happened in previous productions, but not so unmotivated. Sachs and the others shrugged their shoulders, and five hours of opera were somehow wasted, because the central message could not even be conveyed to Eva.
Her escape is, after all, of a private nature. It is not the departure towards a democratic, self-determined, love-filled community that Wagner aspired to. Wagner composes a connection between the revolutionary cultural figures of yesteryear, Sachs, Luther, Dürer, Bach, himself, and the new generation. Here, the petty masters, including Sachs and Beckmesser, who continue to argue about the prize song, remain among themselves, while the young people, unfortunately uncomprehending and drunk, drift away. If this conflict had been critically reflected upon, it would have been an exciting directorial approach. As the mere punchline of a staid comedy, it is too apolitical and Biedermeier-like.
Musically, things are more enjoyable. Daniele Gatti approaches the overture in a festive, effervescent manner rather than a marching one, ensuring a fluid parlando with an orchestra that is sometimes well restrained, as in the lilac monologue. The prelude to the third act excitingly spreads the dark, disparate mood before the delusional monologue. In the cobbler’s workshop, possibly due to the now open stage design, the accompaniment unfortunately seems a little too loud. Stolzings Preislied on the festival grounds becomes longer and longer, and the visitors to the meadow clap in slow motion, as if the film track were delayed. Why this is so is not clear. Apart from that, however, Gatti’s conducting is stringent, the choirs balanced, only too demonstrative in ‘Wacht auf’.
Christina Nilsson‘s blossoming soprano as Eva is a dream. She has delicate fullness, suppleness and freshness, exactly as it should be. Christa Mayer is her down-to-earth friend Magdalene with her rich mezzo tone. Matthias Stier‘s David is wonderfully crafted. His tenor is of impeccable beauty, supple, soft, clear and, what’s more, easy to understand. Michael Spyres as Stolzing has a rather baritone timbre, but from there he effortlessly soars to powerful heights; the heavier voice suits the hero well. Jongmin Park brings great richness to the role of Pogner, but with somewhat muddled articulation. Jordan Shanahan‘s Kothner is more concise.
Georg Zeppenfeld sings Hans Sachs with a tireless voice. His bass is bright, which is why his rumblings always seem somewhat enlightened. He has power and effortlessly reaches the higher registers even in the final speech. He is not very colourful, and the direction robs him of his charisma at the end. Michael Nagy gives a beautiful-sounding Beckmesser without malicious undertones, which is a good thing. This makes it all the more difficult to understand why he pulls the plug on Hans Sachs’ speech and deflates the colourful cow. Is this the resentment of the underdog or a commentary on national self-adulation? This too would be unmotivated in the otherwise consistent characterisation. The plug is plugged back in, the show must go on.
Thus, despite all its pop-style embellishment, this production remains rather tired entertainment that avoids the essential questions of the piece in terms of generational succession and politics, not to mention its difficult reception history. Too little for Bayreuth. Wagner himself was already more courageous in all respects.