Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

by Richard Wagner

seen at Covent Garden on 28 March 2017

Kasper Holten directs his final production as the Artistic Director of the Royal Opera, featuring Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Walther von Stolzing, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Eva Pogner and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sixtus Beckmesser, with sets designed by Mia Stensgaard and costumes by Anja Vang Kragh. The performance was conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Musically this was a treat, with a rich and finely controlled orchestra, powerful choral singing in the opening chorale (cleverly treated as a concert rehearsal rather than as part of a church service) and the great affirmative welcome to Hans Sachs in the final scene, all of this supporting some great soloists - especially Bryn Terfel in marvellous voice as the genial and worldly-wise cobbler-poet and Johannes Martin Kränzle as the fussy over-ambitious and ultimately thwarted town clerk. The younger leads also sounded great though Walther did not look at all knightly. Hanna Hipp as Magdalene and Allan Clayton as David provided a welcome and amusing contrast to the centre-stage lovers as respectively Eva's maid and Sachs's apprentice.

Kasper Holten's productions have been sharply criticised in the past for being too intrusive and missing the tone of the opera concerned (or the taste of the typical Covent Garden audience). In this case, most of the directorial decisions worked well in providing a consistent milieu though there were some awkwardnesses. The 'day dress', so to speak, was basically modern - the chorus at the beginning in suits, but not too formal, the Mastersingers a bit more well-dressed because they are attending a formal meeting. The first act took place in a sort of Art Deco livery hall, with slightly masonic overtones, and indeed the Mastersingers' insignia related to their non-musical trades in the manner of London liveried guilds. (Their costumes in the final scene were heraldically splendid, but nicely unified through the consistent use of ice green tones.)

Into this environment Walther von Stolzing appeared more as an uncouth biker than as a knight from a higher social caste (though perhaps he was meant to be slumming it). He wore a tailed jacket over a tee-shirt and had unkempt, not to say stringy, hair. Thus, with a somewhat aggressive personality to match, his attitude towards hide-bound tradition was intrinsically more contemptuous from the beginning rather than puzzled, and he was merely impatient of David's lecture on the rules of singing rather than overwhelmed.

The second act was visually confusing, because the basic set from the first was maintained. This made nonsense of the usual setting of a street with Sachs's and Pogner's houses facing each other, allowing for the complicated to-ing and fro-ing between the two establishments, and for the idea of a serenade from Beckmesser below Eva's balcony, and for the riot precipitated at the end. All of this was badly muddled by the sight of Sachs merely sitting at one of the formal dinner tables used in the previous audition scene, pushing back the white table cloth so that he could carry on with making Beckmesser's shoes. Likewise all Eva's movements in and out of her 'home' looked less than convincing because there wasn't a clearly defined home. Finally the riot, though visually quite arresting in places with a couple of apprentices attached to a part of the set which rotated vertically so that they were at times hanging upside down, was nonetheless the most unriotous riot imaginable - virtually no-one was directly assaulted and most of the chorus just came on and stood in attitudes while wearing strange carnival masks. It was signifying misrule without any real action, and thus quite surprising that Beckmesser should later be sporting a black eye.

In the first scene of the third act, the whole set slowly revolved, revealing the workings behind the principal set of the first two acts, and finally setting it all in place again in time for the final scene of the midsummer contest. This was effective as a backdrop forSachs's ruminations, Walther's rapturous evocation of his dream, and the 'baptism' of the new song, though at the cost of imagining that it was all taking place inside Sachs's house. However, the great livery hall seemed a suitable venue for the final contest, with tiers of seats for the townspeople and a central area for the contestants.

As for the interpretation of character, there was room for some subtlety, but also some decisions which did not seem supported by the music. Walther, as already mentioned, was more bolshie than might be expected. It was no surprise, then, that he rejected the idea of becoming a Mastersinger at the last moment, though disquieting that when he relented he seemed fatuously pleased with the bling of the regalia. Eva was presented as a temperamental young woman, which is fair enough, and it is more than reasonable in modern eyes that she should be affronted by her father's plans which treat her as effectively equivalent to prize money. However, even though she won the man she wanted, she was pettishly put out by his acquiescence in the Mastersinger ritual. No doubt the sight of all the wives processing in with their husbands and then being banished off-stage as soon as guild business began was enough to warn her of her likely fate - but all this is directorial intervention somewhat at odds with the triumphant musical conclusion; whether the disjunction between what we hear and what we see is justified is open to question.

All in all, I liked the production but still had some reservations.