Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (DVD): Katharina Wagner, Sebastian Weigle, Michael Volle, Franz Hawlata, Klaus Florian Vogt, Norbert Ernst, Michaela Kaune
Conductor Sebastian Weigle
Stage director Katharina
Wagner
Hans
Sachs Franz Hawlata
Veit Pogner Artur Korn
Kunz Vogelgesang Charles Reid
Konrad Nachtigall Rainer Zaun
Sixtus Beckmesser Michael Volle
Fritz Kothner Markus Eiche
Balthasar Zorn Edward Randall
Ulrich Eisslinger Hans-Jürgen Lazar
Augustin Moser Stefan Heibach
Hermann Ortel Martin Snell
Hans Schwarz Andreas Macco
Hans Foltz Diógenes Randes
Walther von Stolzing Klaus Florian Vogt
David Norbert Ernst
Eva Michaela Kaune
Magdalene Carola Guber
Ein Nachtwächter Friedemann Röhlig
Stage design Tilo Steffens
Costumes Michaela Barth / Tilo Steffens
Dramaturgy Robert Sollich
Chorus Director Eberhard Friedrich
Television director Andreas Morell.
Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, July 2008, Opus Arte OA BD7078D (306 minutes, including an extra, “The Making of Meistersinger”).
Master Confusion
“Wie? Schön? Dieser Unsinns-Wust!” (“What? Beautiful? This confused rubbish?”), the chorus sings near the end of Act III of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The choristers are critiquing Beckmesser’s botched delivery of the prize song. But many who have seen Katharina Wagner's Bayreuth Festival staging of the opera feel the production is also confusing rubbish.
Hans Sachs (Franz Hawlata) turns into a Nürnberg demagogue as he delivers his final monologue.
When the production premiered in 2007, Opera magazine editor John Allison wrote that Katharina’s “bleak production is fatally flawed in its failure to deliver worked-out characterization… she reduced the principals to bland zombiedom.”
And after attending a 2008 performance, Opera critic Robin Holloway opined the production is “inept, gross, ugly, stupid, boring, talent-free, in short bloody awful… We’re disgusted because it’s so infantile, so unintelligent, so talent free.”
Videotaped on 27 July 2008, this was the first production filmed from start to finish before a live Bayreuth audience. Opus Arte recently released its version of the DVD and viewing the Blu-ray release, it’s clear the technicians have perfected the process of video production at Bayreuth.
If only the performance were as good as the quality of the DVD.
History Lesson
In comments on the back over of the Opus Arte DVD release, Katharina notes, “This piece has a very unfortunate history. And in Bayreuth, above all, we need to address this history.”
The opera of course ends with the chorus echoing Hans Sachs’ paean to Germany, “Ehrt Eure deutschen Meister” (“Honor your German masters”). For more than 75 years after its 1868 premiere Die Meistersinger strongly appealed to German nationalists, including Franco-Prussian War zealots and others.
When the opera reopened the Bayreuth Festival in 1924, following a World War I hiatus, at the work’s conclusion, the audience rose to its feet and sang “Deutschland über Alles”.
A 1933 Time magazine article documents swastikas draped on Bayreuth buildings and the cheering crowds that greeted Adolf Hitler when he attended a performance of the work at the Festspielhaus.
Music from the opera’s Act III Prelude opens the “Youth Encampment” sequence in Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film, Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens). As Allied attacks against Germany increased in 1943-44, Die Meistersinger was the only work produced at Bayreuth.
Post-War Clean Up
Wieland Wagner's celebrated 1956 Bayreuth production expunged the opera’s Nazi and nationalistic associations. The production was often so minimalist that in Act II Nürnberg is represented by only a street and a flowering tree.
(Katharina’s production adapts Wieland’s 1956 idea of seating the chorus on risers during the Act III prize song competition.)
Although some commentators feel that Beckmesser is a Jewish caricature, Hermann Prey portrayed a sympathetic, dignified Beckmesser at the Festspielhaus in 1981. I witnessed this Bayreuth production and recall Prey deftly underplayed Beckmesser’s pedantry.
Wagnerian Kicks
At the beginning of his final monologue in Katharina’s production, Sachs (portrayed by Franz Hawlata), is depicted as a Nürnberg demagogue, as he praises German nationalism and art as he sings “Verachtet mir die Meister nicht/und ehrt mir ihre Kunst!” (Scorn not the Masters, I bid you/and honor their art!”).
Katharina, however, mocks Germany’s artistic heritage. In lieu of the Act III ballet that is supposed to take place in a meadow, grotesquely masked caricatures of Wagner, Goethe, Lessing, and others prance about with phalluses and twice line up and kick their legs into the air. Such carryings-on are better suited to a high school production than to a major festival house.
Showing one of the masked figures sitting on a commode reading a newspaper, as occurs in the production, isn’t particularly original. Calixto Bieito did something similar in his 2001 staging of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera.
In addition to Act III’s infantile ribaldry, Katharina starts to invert the plot at the end of Act II. After the townspeople riot the heretofore-reactionary Beckmesser, portrayed by Michael Volle, strips off his shirt and tie and wears a black T-shirt with the words “Beck in town” painted on the front.
Quick-Change Artist
For practically the entire first two acts, Walther von Stolzing (Klaus Florian Vogt) is a bratty, hyperactive artist who smears paint on nearby props and even daubs Eva’s dress.
The character also apparently experiences an epiphany of sorts after the riot, as he wipes some paint off a statue as Act II ends. And part way through the last act, Walter swaps his leather jacket and flashy trousers for a conservative suit.
Since Walter is depicted as an über-conformist in the last act, it’s unclear, in this production at least, why the character refuses to accept the prize trophy and membership in the Meister’s guild.
Still, the most egregious scene in this production is the aforementioned final monologue when Sachs speaks at one of those infamous Nazi nighttime rallies in Nürnberg. This demeans the character and subverts the opera’s reconciliatory spirit.
Transformations from rebel to conformist (and vice-versa) or, as with Sachs, from humanist to demagogue, do occur in real life, but rarely so swiftly. After all, Die Meistersinger takes place within a 24-hour period.
Just Do It
There are other puzzling moments in the production, including the dozens of sneakers that rain down from the flies during the Act II riot.
The chain-smoking Sachs, who is barefoot until part way through Act III, apparently specializes in cobbling offbeat athletic shoes. When Eva complains her shoes are too tight, she is wearing different color sneakers.
The Opus Arte DVD omits Katharina’s post-performance bow, so we don’t hear the loud boos many in the audience directed toward her when she took her curtain call.
Musical Shortcomings
It might be easier to view this staging of Die Meistersinger if the production featured brilliant singers and orchestral playing, but that is seldom the case.
Among the principals only Michael Volle is completely satisfying, dramatically as Volle’s nerd-turned-hippie Beckmesser sings and acts with a fluency as accomplished as Prey’s performance of 30 years ago.
Walther von Stolzing (Klaus Florian Vogt) becomes an über-conformist during Act III.
Klaus Florian Vogt is a good actor, has an attractive stage presence and certainly has the tessitura to sing Walter’s high notes. But part-way through Act II, his bloodless timbre starts to grate.
For much of the performance Franz Hawlata sounds vocally frayed (perhaps his character should smoke less frequently). Sachs’ lack of charisma may be partly due to Katharina’s direction but he never conveys the larger-than-life quality that one finds in other available filmed performances.
Michaela Kaune, Eva, lacks a voice with the bright tonal quality needed for her role. Nor is Carola Guber, Magdalena, particularly impressive. Norbert Ernst, David, sounds fine vocally but the three-piece suit he wears stifles his character.
Sebastian Weigle’s conducting is more dutiful than radiant as he and the orchestra struggle to find the right balance between Wagner’s polyphonic score and Bayreuth’s unique acoustics. However, the Bayreuth chorus sings splendidly throughout the performance.
A DVD extra, “The Making of Die Meistersinger”, includes interviews with the director, singers and other principals, as well as some lighthearted teasing amongst the singers. The lengthier Baptism of Fire documentary about Katharina Wagner and the production was released for Region 2 DVD players and is not readily available in the U.S. or Canada.
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