#the mastersingers of nuremberg

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

sopranos, tenors, and baritones

(source)

[opera-ghosts]

Exactly 113 years ago, a performance of Richard Wagner‘s opera took place in the Vienna Court Opera Theater, which is now the Vienna State Opera "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" took place. The conductor was Felix Weingartner. The role of Hans Foltz was sung that evening by a singer by the name Richard Wagner, which certainly led to some smiles.

[outsiderlookinginward]

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg and St Catherine’s Church

St Catherine’s Church in Nuremberg was dedicated in 1297 and formed part of a Dominican convent. It became a centre for illuminating manuscripts and weaving tapestry. After the Reformation, the church was put to profane uses and between 1620 and 1778 it was the home of the Mastersingers of Nuremberg. Continue reading The Mastersingers of Nuremberg and St Catherine’s Church

[blackswaneuroparedux]

An artist has to pay for the gift of his genius. Wagner paid. He was defeated, one way or another, all his life. His own self-destructiveness always pursued him. There wasn’t one of his triumphs that was not spoiled, at the moment of triumph, by his own self-destructiveness. But what he couldn’t do, his characters do. In his operas, he splits his many-faceted self into those characters. He drains off the evil in himself and, as the long dramas move towards their great catharses, he brings the good together. Hans Sachs does what Wagner wanted to do but never could – renounce his own wilfulness and open up in understanding and compassion to others.

M. Owen Lee, Wagner and the Wonder of Art: An Introduction to Die Meistersinger

Of Wagner’s great operas, “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” often gets overlooked when the conversation of “greatest works” begins. Perhaps partly because the story is pretty straightforward and is also admittedly one of the composer’s more intimate operas. The opera opens on Midsummer's eve, Nuremberg in the 16th century - a setting many productions have played loose with for example I went to one of Glyndebourne's production that updated the setting to the early 19th century.

The story revolves around the real-life cobbler-poet Hans Sachs and the guild of mastersingers - poets and musicians who pursue their craft according to traditions and rules. A goldsmith's daughter, Eva, and a knight, Walther von Stolzing, fall in love, but Eva's father has promised her to the winner in the forthcoming song contest. Walther must learn the mastersinger's art rapidly, under the wise tuition of Sachs (considered Wagner's most generous and human character) - and despite a challenge from the foolish town clerk Beckmesser.

The premiere of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was generously supported by Ludwig II of Bavaria, at the Munich Court Opera on 21 June 1868. Hans von Bülow conducted, and Franz Strauss, the father of Richard Strauss played the French horn at the premiere. It was enthusiastically received, and Eduard Hanslick wrote in Die Neue Freie Presse, “Dazzling scenes of colour and splendour, ensembles full of life and character unfold before the spectator’s eyes, hardly allowing him the leisure to weigh how much and how little of these effects is of musical origin.”

Within a year of its premiere, Meistersinger was performed across central Europe, and Hans Sachs’s final warning at the end of Act III for the need to preserve German art from foreign threats became a rallying point for German nationalism, particularly during the Franco-Prussian War, the Wilhelmine Reich, the Weimar Republic, and most notoriously, during the Third Reich. But - and quite rightly so - many contemporary productions have attempted to redeem it as one of Wagner's most approachable, tuneful and likeable works.

The opera itself was not based on any major myth the way some of his other works were and its tame and comic nature make it seem ripe to overlook in the context of his other massive philosophical works. Yet this opera is every bit as good, if not better, than many of Wagner’s best works. It’s overture has become a staple of the standard orchestral repertoire, but its themes of longing and the nature of art and its purpose are among the most immersive and potent discussions that the creator engages his audience in. The main draw I think is the character of Hans Sachs himself that Wagner himself readily identified with.

As a 15-year-old Wagner saw Deinhardstein’s comedy “Hans Sachs” on a Dresden stage, which captivated him instantly. It was about the Nuremberg poet and Meistersinger Sachs, who was known for his poetry in the 16th century. The art of the Mastersingers went back to minstrels who made music according to free rules and who recorded their art rules in fixed tablatures as they gradually settled in the cities. This art was subsequently administered by the guild masters, of whom the shoemaker Sachs was the most famous.

17 years after his experience in the Dresden theatre, Wagner felt the need to create a cheerful counterpart to the tragic “Tannhäuser”. He recollected the comedy and created his first sketches in 1845 during a spa stay in Marienbad. His involvement in the Dresden Revolution and the hectic flight to Switzerland interrupted the work and it was to take another 15 years before he resumed work.

Why it took him so long to write could partly be explained by financial woes which despite taking a heavy advance he failed to turn in a credible draft. It was not until the work on the opera continued when Ludwig II of Bavaria relieved him of his financial needs and he was able to complete the work by 1867. But also he needed time for ideas to marinate as it was only later that Wagner had come across a chronicle by Wagenseil (“von den Meisters Singer holdseligen Kunst”), which gave him a comprehensive insight into the rules and regulations of the Meistersinger.

But yet another reason exists which was the emotional turbulence in his life, in particular his relationship with his then secret lover, Mathilde Wesendonck. At the invitation of his Zurich patrons, the Wesendonck couple, Wagner spent a few days with them in Venice in 1861. There he discovered that his secret lover Mathilde Wesendonck was pregnant with her husband’s fifth child. After the love affair was already in a crisis, Wagner realised that this love, which inspired him to “Tristan and Isolde” was over. Now Wagner decided to philosophically transcend this indirect “rejection” and saw himself as Hans Sachs, who renounced love for noble reasons.

The philosophical framework for this was provided by Schopenhauer’s work “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” (The World as Will and representation”), which he had become acquainted with a few years earlier. In Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of the world, the will of the predator “man” results in destructive torments. This inherent mania leads to war, self-destruction and loss of love, whose only way out is renunciation (of the will).

Thus the shoemaker poet Hans Sachs became a Schopenhauer figure whose world philosophy Wagner expounded in the delusional monologue of the third act. This philosophical change explains the paramount importance of Hans Sachs’ figure in Wagner’s Meistersinger: Sachs is the master himself. Wagner identified himself with no other figure more than the cobbler-poet, and he has him quoted in the third act “Tristan and Isolde”: «Mein Kind, von Tristan und Isolde kenn’ ich ein traurig Stück. Hans Sachs war klug und wollte nichts von Herrn Markes Glück». (“My child, I know a sad tale of Tristan and Isolde. Hans Sachs was clever and did not want anything of King Marke’s lot”). Isolde now became Eva!

Apart from Sachs, all other figures fade away, even the revolutionary hero and iconoclast Walther (who also has a little Wagner in him) must take a back seat to the light figure Sachs. If the Junker Walther were the hero of the final act in a “normal” opera, the third act now becomes the two-hour “Hans Sachs Festival”, which begins with his Wahn-monologue and ends with his «Verachtet mir die Meister nicht» (“Don’t despise me the masters”), forming one of the most gigantic par force tours in all of opera literature. The part of Sachs demands the whole range of the singer’s repertoire: high lyrical passages, long declamatory stretches and of course the high passages of the third act and the enormous final scene.

Marco Jentzsc sings a snippet of Walther's prize song in David McVicar's 2011 production.

[childrenweb]

Who is Nicky Spence? Everything you need to know about the Scottish tenor, including his best recordings

The winner of the 2022 BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year award is well-known for his charisma and vocal stature

Who is Nicky Spence?

Nicky Spence is a Scottish operatic tenor known for his vocal and physical stature (right down to his Size 12 feet), his velvety vocal timbre, his open-minded approach to repertoire, and his charisma – qualities that won the 38-year-old singer the 2022 BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year award.

Where does Nicky Spence come from?

Dumfries, near the Scottish Borders, where he grew up on a farm. He is still a supporter of the town's football team, Queen of the South ('The Doonhamers'), who currently play in Scottish League One.

How old is Nicky Spence?

Nicky Spence was born in 1983.

Is Nicky Spence married?

Nicky Spence is married to his accompanist Dylan Perez.

How did Nicky Spence get into music?

Although Spence originally wanted to play the trumpet - and briefly took it up as a child - his family could not afford to pay for lessons. Luckily a music teacher at his school spotted his talent for singing, which went on to win him the Dumfries and Galloway Young Musician of the Year Award when he was 14, as well as a place in the Scottish Youth Theatre and National Youth Music Theatre.

When did opera enter the picture?

After a neighbour offered the 15-year-old Spence a spare ticket for Mozart's The Magic Flute. He was hooked.

Where did he study?

At the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where, during his final year, he got his first big break, receiving a five-record contract with Universal Classics. Within the space of just a couple of years, he released his first album (My First Love), was nominated for the 'Young British Classical Performer of the Year' Classical Brit Award, and toured with Katherine Jenkins and Shirley Bassey. He has said that he owes more to Tom Jones than to Pavarotti in finding his voice. Yet, when the time came to record his second album, Spence turned his back on the £1m contract, choosing instead to return to full-time study at the Guildhall to focus on opera.

And since then?

He has sung in opera houses and concert halls all over the world, with regular appearances at the Royal Opera House and English National Opera. Admitting that he has an aversion to the 'rum-ti-tum' operas of Donizetti and the 'sillier' side of Verdi, Spence has specialised in complex, truthful roles, frequently taking on repertoire by the Czech composers Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák. He also has an affinity for Wagner, having appeared in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Der fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold – and has sung a good deal of 20th century repertoire. But he still casts his net beyond classical music, freely professing his love of musicals and often embracing the sounds of Broadway in his work.

Anything else I should know about Nicky Spence?

Even by A-list singer standards, Spence has a particular talent for keeping busy. Last winter he was one of three mentors appearing on Anyone Can Sing, a TV series in which six would-be singers were given guidance by expert vocalists. During the pandemic he made every minute count, jabbing over 100 people every day as a volunteer in a vaccination clinic.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

...I would watch this

Who Sings in a Guild in Nuremberg (Under the Sea)

The characters from Spongebob act out Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

[beckmessering]

production idea: meistersinger and everything is (fairly) normal except eva is a literal cardboard cutout

this is a half-baked idea. proceed with caution lol

- why is eva a cardboard cutout? becase this girl has NO PERSONALITY and everyone needs to know

- she is, of course, still sung. the soprano sings her from offstage. 

- everyone needs to act extremely normal about this. business as usual (basically i want the outrageously traditional met meisteringer production but with this modification)

- partially illustrates how incredibly ridiculous it is of stolzing to want to marry this girl after having known her for one...maybe two?? days 

- he can impossibly know more about her than he could know about a cardboard cutout. so just let her be one lol

- also emphasises what a weirdfuck idea it is to have a singing contest to win the hand of a girl. like...this girl is not a trophy to be won. she shouldn’t be an object and this whole contest is weird and should feel weird to the rational audience member  

- and. beckmesser (this has to be done seriously, ok) deciding to enter the contest not because he’s into *cough* stealing german girls *cough* but because he is, above all other things, very much isolated in the mastersingers’ social dynamic and he is desperately looking for something, anything, that can help him and he will chase after a status symbol in hopes of attaining it (bc tbh. eva is being made a bit of a status symbol by marrying her off in this contest) 

- does that make beckmesser greedy? no. it makes him sad and a lil desperate and actually a little relatable if done right, hopefully, bc i think many people may know the feeling of chasing a material object they hope will make them less excluded. a little like when you were in school and everyone had a Cool Thing New Thing and you didn’t and got shut out of conversations, so you wanted a Cool Thing too. 

- and it kinda evades the ‘jews are money-grabbing’ stereotype. it is a cardboard cutout. it is worthless. it’s just that the entirety of nuremberg has decided that this is person-like without this being objective or provable, or true literally anywhere else. and he’s pinning his dreams of being liked on...a cardboard cutout. ouch. 

(- beckmesser doesn’t need a cardboard cutout, he needs friends. that should become obvious.)

(- sachs is the only problem in this. he actually does know her well. granted, his attachment to her is kind of weird. but he does know her. We Shall See about sachs. although. would also be fascinating if he were the only one who KNEW how much of a cardboard cutout she is, recognised this, and agonised about the state of the world over it.)

onto the lighter ideas:

- just. imagine act 2 where walther and eva are running away but what ACTUALLY happens is walther is dragging a cardboard cutout around the stage and hiding the cutout in the bushes 

- walther absconds with a fcking CARDBOARD CUTOUT after refusing to become a meistersinger. don’t think he can get more ridiculous. sorry not sorry bby

- act 1 scene 1 would also be hilarious. just for comedic shock reasons. walther is waiting in front of the church and waiting and waiting and waiting and - 

behold. there’s the girl. 

(is it obvious that mainly i’m v fed up with walther and his spontaneous urges to marry girls?)

- ultimately shows much of this opera was never about winning the hand of a girl anyway. that’s just kind of a lie. a cute little idea to distract from the fundamental discussion and partly terrible arguments being made about german art. idk but it seems to me that this girl was just...a method to illustrate some arguments about who should belong into the german arts landscape and who shouldn’t. 

[xylophonetangerine]

I would rank Wagner's operas thus:

Tristan and Isolde

The Ring

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

Parsifal

The Flying Dutchman

Lohengrin

Tannhäuser

One of the reasons I rate Tannhäuser so low is because I find the plot to be tiresome and asinine. Also I've never listened to Rienzi.

[bogomolzhukov]

[russian-dallas]

Mendelssohn & Elgar- Both are Coming to Dallas!

Mendelssohn & Elgar- Both are Coming to Dallas!

Dallas Symphony Orchestra Presents: Mendelssohn & Elgar DSO_Mendelssohn_Elgar_DT SIR MARK ELDER conducts ISATA KANNEH-MASON piano WAGNER Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg MENDELSSOHN Piano Concerto No. 1 ELGAR Symphony No. 1 The spirited prelude to Wagner’s comic opera The Mastersingers of Nuremberg highlights his uncanny ability to build suspense with powerful orchestral tuttis and…

[insidedreams-blog]

My friend, it is precisely the poet’s task to interpret and record his dreamings. Believe me, man’s truest madness is disclosed to him in dreams: all poetry and versification is nothing but true dream interpretation. Hans Sachs in Richard Wagner’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

Blechner, Mark J. (2018-04-26T22:58:59). The Mindbrain and Dreams (Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series) (Kindle Locations 408-412). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

[bayreuthtourismus]

Die Bayreuther Festspiele sind in vollem Gang. Heute werden hier die Meistersinger von Nürnberg aufgeführt. Bislang kann man mit dem Verlauf der Festspiele sehr zufrieden sein. Das Hygienekonzept funktioniert und viele Opernfans sind nach Bayreuth gereist. Wer abends in die Aufführung geht, ist an einem orangenen Bändchen am Handgelenk zu erkennen. The Bayreuth Festival is in full swing. Today the Mastersingers of Nuremberg are performed here. So far, we can be very satisfied with the way the festival went. The hygiene concept works and many opera fans have traveled to Bayreuth. Those, who attend the performance tonight can be recognized by an orange ribbon on the wrist. 📷©️: @mrgoodleif #visitbavaria #nightshot #festspiele #musik #festival #richardwagner #visitgermany #visitfranconia #15cities #meistersinger #franken #bayreuth #wagner #19thcentury #sharegermany #deutschlandkarte #bayreuthfestival #wagnerfestspiele #richardwagnerfestspiele #igersfranconia #klassik #oper #opera #meistersinger #culture #inconcert #festspielhaus #kultur #instamusic #igersbayreuth @wagnerfestival (hier: Festspielhaus Bayreuth) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSd45WuqCD8/?utm_medium=tumblr

[healthycoffeeguy]

Check out IN CLASSICAL MOOD #6… on Mercari!

Check out what I just listed on Mercari. Tap the link to sign up and get up to $30 off. https://item.mercari.com/gl/m11949483020/

Book with Audio CD - Book introduces you to each song. Featuring Carmen, Candide, La Traviata, Oberon, The Wasps, The Marriage of Figaro, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, The Nutcracker, Fidelio, The Yeomen of the Guard and William Tell

[gargantua]

                       Wagner - Overture to "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" - Furtwängler BPO 1942              

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Bayreuth, 2017): Reactions, Part II

probably gonna take this one act a night lol

oh this is pretty (although that this is still the courtroom is not lost on me)

(also according to the projected info, this is chronologically before Act I here???)

a delightful little tune

oh for goodness sake

Eva is bored

I love these two

this is really pretty

Anger Management 101

sometimes innovation just be like that

funny bit of wordplay

not subtle at all

:(

ouch

this definitely won’t cause confusion

loverboy

oh look it’s an orchestra

this is lovely

time to elope!

oh buddy

some real chilling suspense in this music!

well this is awkward

this bops also this is just one of those hilarious “suspension of time/we’re not actually doing anything though we want to” scenes

Beckmesser, that is not in fact Eva

I mean, that’s a decent solution to me

...of course not you’re just being a jerk

literally that was exactly what Beckmesser just said

lololol

oof

oh buddy

this is both utterly hilarious and utterly sad so I feel conflicted

it’s a great song you’re just mean

poor Beckmesser

well that escalated quickly

(also what’s up with the clock turning backwards?)

oh this is just a MESS

LEAVE HIM ALONE HE WAS JUST TRYING TO SERENADE A GAL

a lot of people have said that this is heavily inspired by the riot scene in Act III of Les Huguenots and...yeah I can hear that

and also they both BOP

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd y’all townspeople went THERE

someone help Beckmesser PLEASE

oh dear

SOMEONE HELP HIM OH MY GOD

antisemitism rearing its literal ugly head

are you helping? nooooooooooooooooo

in conclusion, Beckmesser deserved better

[oddepia]

Wagner opera proof stars in 1.7m euro Paris auction

Wagner opera proof stars in 1.7m euro Paris auction

A proof of Richard Wagner’s opera “The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”, copiously corrected by the composer himself, sold for more than twice its estimate in Paris Tuesday. The book was part of the ongoing auction of fashion magnate Pierre Berge’s famous library — one of the richest in private hands — which has … Read entire story.

Source: Recent News on Artdaily.org