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Characters Act I Scene 1. The curtain opens on the interior of St. Katherine's Church in Nuremberg. Mass is just ending as Walther von Stolzing, a young knight, enters. He seeks out Eva, whom he had met earlier, and asks her if she is engaged to anyone. Eva is obviously besotted with Walther, but informs him that her father, the goldsmith and Meistersinger Veit Pogner, has arranged to give her hand in marriage to the victor of the guild's song contest on St. John's day (Midsummer's day), tomorrow. Eva's maid, Magdalena, induces her suitor David to instruct Walther in the Meistersinger's art. The hope is for Walther to qualify as a Meistersinger during the guild meeting, traditionally held in the church after mass, and thus earn a place in the song contest. Scene 2. As the other apprentices set up the church for the meeting, David explains to Walther that he is the apprentice of Hans Sachs, a master cobbler and a well-respected Meistersinger. He proceeds to give a rather confused lecture on the Meistersingers' rules for composing and singing. (Many of the tunes quoted are real master-tunes from the period.) Walther is obviously overwhelmed by the convoluted rules, but is determined to try for a place in the guild. Scene 3. The first Meistersingers file into the church: Eva's father Veit Pogner and the town clerk Beckmesser. Beckmesser, who is also planning on winning Eva's hand in marriage by winning the song contest, takes an instant dislike to Walther. The other masters arrive, and Fritz Kothner calls the roll. Pogner, addressing the assembly, announces his offer of his daughter's hand for the winner of the song contest. When Hans Sachs argues that Eva ought to have a say in the matter, Pogner agrees that Eva may refuse the winner of the contest, but she must still choose a Meistersinger. Another suggestion by Sachs, that the people rather than the guild should be called upon to judge the winner of the contest, is squelched by the other masters. Walther is now introduced, and the masters agree to admit him provided he can perform a master-song of his own composition. He is to be judged by Beckmesser, the "Marker" of the guild. Walther launches into a novel free-form tune, obviously breaking all the Meistersingers' rules, and his song is constantly interrupted by the scratch of Beckmesser's chalkboard, maliciously noting one error after another. Though Sachs insists Walther be allowed to continue, the rest of the group rejects the knight. Act II Scene 1. Evening in a Nuremburg street, at the corner between Pogner's house and Hans Sachs' workshop. David informs Magdalena of Walther's failure. In her disappointment, Magdalena leaves without giving David the food she had brought for him. This arouses the derision of the other apprentices, and David is about to turn on them when Sachs arrives and hustles his apprentice into the workshop. Scene 2. Pogner arrives with Eva, engaging in a roundabout conversation: Eva is hesitant to ask about the outcome of Walther's application, and Pogner has private doubts about offering his daughter's hand in marriage for the song contest. As they enter their house, Magdalena appears and tells Eva about the rumours of Walther's failure. Eva decides to ask Sachs about the matter. Scene 3. As twilight falls, Hans Sachs takes a seat in front of his house to work on a new pair of shoes for Beckmesser. He muses on Walther's song, which has made a deep impression on him. Scene 4. Eva approaches Sachs, and they discuss tomorrow's song contest. Eva is obviously unenthusiastic about Beckmesser, who appears to be the only eligible contestant. Eva hints that she would not mind if Sachs, a widower, wins the contest. Though touched, Sachs protests that he would be too old a husband for her. Upon further prompting, Sachs relates Walther's failure at the guild meeting. This causes Eva to storm off, obviously upset, confirming Sachs' suspicion that she has fallen in love with Walther. Eva is intercepted by Magdalena, who informs her that Beckmesser is coming to serenade her. Eva, determined to search for Walther, tells Magdalena to pose as her at the bedroom window. Scene 5. Just as Eva is about to leave, Walther appears. He tells her about the fiasco at the meeting, and the two prepare to elope. However, Sachs has overheard their plans. As they are passing by, he innocently illuminates the street with his lantern, forcing them to hide in the shadow of Pogner's house. Walther makes up his mind to confront Sachs, but is foiled by the arrival of Beckmesser. Scene 6. As Eva and Walther retreat further into the shadows, Beckmesser begins his serenade. Sachs interrupts him by launching into a full-bellied cobbling song, while hammering away at the half-made shoes. Annoyed, Beckmesser tells Sachs to stop, but the cobbler feigns ignorance and tells him that he has to finish the shoes, which Beckmesser himself had ordered, by tomorrow. Beckmesser, who has spotted someone at Eva's window (Magdalena in disguise), has no time to argue. He reluctantly agrees to Sachs' proposal to play the role of Marker, indicating each mistake in the serenade with a thump on the shoes. Beckmesser begins, but makes so many errors that from the repeated knocks Sachs finishes the shoes. The entire neighbourhood is awakened by the noise. David, seeing a figure serenading Magdalena, grabs a cudgel and sets upon Beckmesser. The other apprentices rush into the fray, and the situation degenerates into a full-blown riot. In the confusion, Walther endeavours to escape with Eva, but Sachs pushes Eva into her home and drags Walther into his own workshop. Quiet is restored as abruptly as it was broken. A lone figure walks through the street—the night watchman, calling out the hour. Act III Scene 1. As morning dawns, Sachs is reading a large book in his workshop. Lost in thought, he does not respond as David returns from delivering Beckmesser's shoes. David finally manages to attract his master's attention, and they discuss the upcoming festivities -- it is St. John's day, Hans Sachs' name day! David recites his verses for Sachs, and leaves to prepare for the festival. Alone, Sachs ponders last night's riot. "Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!" (Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn!) His attempt to prevent an elopement had ended in shocking violence. Nevertheless, he is resolved to make madness work for him today. Scene 2. Walther, who has spent the night in Sachs' home, enters the room. He tells Sachs that he had a pleasant dream, and, with Sachs' encouragement, fashions two sections of a new Prize Song from it. Sachs copies down the verses as they are sung. A final section remains to be composed, but Walther is tired of words. The two men leave the room to dress for the festival. Scene 3. Beckmesser, still sore from his drubbing the night before, enters the workshop. He spots the verses of the Prize Song, laid down in Sachs' handwriting, and draws the conclusion that Sachs is joining the contest for Eva's hand. The cobbler re-enters the room, and Beckmesser confronts him with the verses. However, Sachs declares that he has no intention of wooing Eva, and agrees to let Beckmesser take the poem with him; he even promises never to claim the song to be his own. Beckmesser rushes off to prepare for the song contest, ecstatic at the prospect of using verses written by the famous Hans Sachs. Scene 4. Eva arrives at the workshop. She is looking for Walther, but pretends to have complaints about a shoe that Sachs made for her. Sachs realizes that the shoe is a perfect fit, but pretends to set about altering the stitching. As he works, he tells Eva that he has just heard a beautiful song, lacking only an ending. Eva cries out as Walther enters the room, splendidly attired for the festival, and sings the third and final section of the Prize Song. The couple are overwhelmed with gratitude for Sachs, and Eva asks Sachs to forgive her for playing with his feelings, but the cobbler brushes them off with bantering complaints about his lot as a shoemaker, poet, and widower. At last, however, he admits to Eva that, despite his feelings for her, he is resolved to avoid the fate of King Mark (a reference to another Wagner opera, Tristan und Isolde), thus extending his blessing upon the lovers. David and Magdalena appear. Sachs announces to the group that a new master-song has been born, which, following the rules of the Meistersingers, is to be baptized. As an apprentice cannot serve as a witness for the baptism, he promotes David to the rank of journeyman with the traditional cuff on the ear. He then christens the Prize Song the Morning Dream Song (Selige Morgentraumdeut-Weise). After musing on their good fortunes, the group departs for the festival. Scene 5. The feast of St. John is taking place in the meadow near the river Pegnitz. The various guilds hold their processions, culminating in the arrival of the Meistersingers. The crowd sings the praises of Hans Sachs, the most beloved of the Meistersingers. The prize contest begins. The first contestant is Beckmesser, who attempts to use the verses that he had obtained from Sachs. However, he is unable to fit the words to an appropriate melody, and ends up singing so clumsily that the crowd laughs. Before storming off in anger, he claims that Hans Sachs was the author of the song. Sachs denies this; as proof, he invites Walther onto the stage. Walther's performance of the Prize Song breaks more of the Meistersingers' rules than ever, but it is so beautiful that everyone is won over. He has won the contest, and Eva's hand in marriage. The Meistersingers want to make him a member of their guild on the spot, but, to their dismay, he refuses. Sachs intervenes once more. "Scorn not the Masters, I bid you!" he chastises Walther. In spite of their faults, the Meistersingers have cared for German art in their own way, preserving it through years of unrest. Walther finally assents, and the people sing once more the praises of Hans Sachs, the beloved Meistersinger of Nuremberg. Genesis Wagner’s autobiography Mein Leben described the genesis of Die Meistersinger. Taking the cure at Marienbad in 1845 he began reading Georg Gottfried Gervinus’ “History of German Literature”. This work included chapters on Mastersong and on Hans Sachs. “I had formed a particularly vivid picture of Hans Sachs and the mastersingers of Nuremberg. I was especially intrigued by the institution of the Marker and his function in rating master-songs….I conceived during a walk a comic scene in which the popular artisan-poet, by hammering upon his cobbler’s last, gives the Marker, who is obliged by circumstances to sing in his presence, his come-uppance for previous pedantic misdeeds during official singing contests, by inflicting upon him a lesson of his own.” Gervinus’ book also mentions a poem by the real-life Hans Sachs on the subject of Luther, called “Die Wittembergisch Nachtigall”. The opening lines for this poem, addressing the Reformation, were later used by Wagner in Act 3 when the crowd acclaims Sachs: "Wacht auf, es nahet gen den Tag; ich hör' singen im grünen Hag ein wonnigliche Nachtigall.” In addition to this Wagner added a scene drawn from his own life, in which a case of mistaken identity led to a near-riot: this was to be the basis for the finale of Act 2. “Out of this situation evolved an uproar, which through the shouting and clamour and an inexplicable growth in the number of participants in the struggle soon assumed a truly demoniacal character. It looked to me as if the whole town would break out into a riot…Then suddenly I heard a heavy thump, and as if by magic the whole crowd dispersed in every direction…One of the regular patrons had felled one of the noisiest rioters…. And it was the effect of this which had scattered everybody so suddenly.” This first draft was dated Marienbad 16th July 1845. Wagner later said, in “Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde” (1851) that Meistersinger was to be a comic opera to follow a tragic opera, ie. Tannhäuser. Just as the Athenians had followed a tragedy with a comic satyr play, so Wagner would follow Tannhäuser with Meistersinger: the link being that both operas included song-contests. In 1854 Wagner first read Schopenhauer, and was struck by the philosopher’s theories on aesthetics. In this philosophy, art is a means for escaping from the sufferings of the world, and music is the highest of the arts since it is the only one not involved in representation of the world (ie. it is abstract). It is for this reason that music can communicate emotion without the need for words. In his earlier essay Opera and Drama (1850-1) Wagner had derided the staples of operatic construction: arias, choruses, duets, trios, recitatives, etc. As a result of reading Schopenhauer's theories on the role of music, Wagner now re-evaluated this prescription for opera, and hence many of these features can be found in Die Meistersinger. Although Die Meistersinger is a comedy, it also elucidates Wagner’s ideas on the place of music in society, on renunciation of the Will, and of the solace that music brings in a world full of “Wahn” (which may be translated into English as "Illusion", "madness", "folly" or "self-deception"). It is Wahn which causes the riot in Act 2 - a sequence of events arising from a case of mistaken identity, which can be seen as a form of self-delusion. Many commentators have pointed out that Sachs in his famous Act 3 monologue Wahn, wahn, überall Wahn is paraphrasing Schopenhauer when he describes the way that Wahn, or self-delusion, drives men to behave in ways which are actually destroying them. in Flucht geschlagen, wähnt er zu jagen; hört nicht sein eigen Schmerzgekreisch, wenn er sich wühlt ins eig'ne Fleisch, wähnt Lust sich zu erzeigen! (driven into flight he believes he is hunting, and does not hear his own cry of pain: when he tears into his own flesh, he imagines he is giving himself pleasure!) By the time Wagner resumed work on Die Meistersinger in 1861 after the completion of Tristan und Isolde his philosophical outlook had changed completely from that he held when he first drafted his comedy. The character of Hans Sachs becomes one of the most Schopenhauerian of all Wagner's creations. Lucy Beckett has pointed out the remarkable similarity between Wagner's Sachs and Schopenhauer's description of noble man: "We always picture a very noble character to ourselves as having a certain trace of silent sadness... It is a consciousness that has resulted from knowledge of the vanity of all achievements and of the suffering of all life, not merely of one's own." (Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation) The other major facet of Sach's personality - his renunciation of his hope of winning Eva's love - is also deeply Schopenhauerian. Sachs here denies the Will in its most insistent form, that of sexual love. Wagner marks this moment with a direct musical reference to Tristan und Isolde: "Mein Kind, von Tristan und Isolde kenn' ich ein traurig Stück. Hans Sachs war klug und wollte nichts von Herrn Markes Glück." Wagner began the libretto in 1862, and followed this by composing the Overture. Composition of Act 1 was begun in spring of 1863, but the opera in its entirety was not finished until October 1867. Trivia Notes | ||||||||||
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