Master piece

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is one of the most taxing of all operas to stage, with a large cast, gigantic proportions and requirements of stamina, both musically and emotionally, such as very few works make.

The Masters’ meeting really is like a committee, yet thanks to the wit of the text and the resourcefulness of the music it is that unimaginable thing, a ‘transfigured’ committee, with agonising longueurs for the participants, but pure joy for the spectators. Yet McVicar achieves all this without intrusive fuss or business, so on a crowded stage it’s always clear what matters most. And Vladimir Jurowski, showing himself to be much more attuned to Meistersinger than he was even to Tristan, lovingly coaxes every yearning or humorous phrase from the superlative, tireless London Philharmonic, while maintaining a sure grip on the vast structure.

Topi Lehtipuu makes an ideal David, a lolling, loquacious artful dodger, someone who will give his Magdalene a trickier time than any other I’ve seen; with already the voice of a Master. His reluctant pupil Walther was harder to make out. Marco Jentzsch sings ardently, looks the tall toff, but has an ungainly stage manner, though he built up successive verses of the Prize Song, aided at every moment by Jurowski, brilliantly. Enter the top-hatted Pogner, Alastair Miles, and though he is no black-voiced German bass, he is still magnificent, making one wish, as all great Pogners do, that he didn’t have such long absences from the stage. His scene with his daughter Eva at the start of Act II was as moving as anything in the opera, as it should be.

The role of Eva is short but demanding, and reluctantly I have to say that Anna Gabler was the weak link, without which it seems that any Meistersinger cast is incomplete. Her other suitor Beckmesser is a vituoso portrayal by Johannes Martin Kränzle, a man so ill at ease with himself that he has to spend most of his energy finding what makes other people miserable.

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Paul Heise

June 3rd, 2011 4:48am Report this comment

Dear Michael:

The performance sounds wonderful. "Mastersingers is one of my operatic pillars.

Here's your opportunity to give my 40 years' work attempting to demonstrate the conceptual unity of Wagner's "Ring" a serious read. My comprehensive study is now online, free, at www.wagnerheim.com, where it's introduced by Dr. Roger Scruton.

Enjoy!

Your friend from Wagnerheim,

Paul Heise

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