Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Bayreuther Festspiele, 27.08.2017

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is probably the least funny comedy you’ll ever see. The dialogues are overwrought, the scenes are long, the whole affair around the mastersingers is obscure, the leading man is not very friendly and there is more than a splash of xenophobia in its agenda. It also has some glorious music and that is the reason why we sit there for hours of joyless theatre. As I am a half-full-glass person, I tend to expect that one day a director will be able to dig out the humor in it and put some of the nasty stuff in perspective at the same time. I mean, at this point, everybody knows that Richard Wagner was not a nice guy – and his personal credo is not what we want to celebrate here, as much as we don’t want to listen to Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village because he wrote the Discourse on Inequality. In other words, the discussion on Wagner’s deplorable political thinking won’t be less important if directors finally overcome the guilt complex of making this comedy entertaining, while proposing (rather than superimposing) some kind of discussion.

Barry Kosky, for instance, clearly feels that comedy shouldn’t be about laughing at the expense of someone. And he is right – Beckmesser is here bullied, ridiculed and outcast by an unforgiven society of which he believed to be a part of. I don’t believe I am going to say something positive about Katharina Wagner’s production for the festival, but here it goes. Instead of focusing on Beckmesser as the victim of exclusion, she tackled the conservative forces that operate exclusion under the banner of protection of culture and national values. Mr. Kosky, instead, is a victimologist and offers a case study of how Wagner’s antisemitism pervades Meistersinger, although the libretto itself doesn’t make any direct statement of the kind. As far as the story as told goes, Beckmesser is a master singer in Nuremberg just like Pogner and Sachs. But not in this production.

Act 1 is staged in Villa Wahnfried. Eva is Cosima, Pogner is Liszt, Beckmesser is Hermann Levi (Parsifal’s original conductor, who was abused by Wagner for being Jewish) and both Sachs and Walther (and even David) are Richard Wagner. The idea is illuminating, but the staging was very difficult to understand with all those Wagners (dressed with the same costume) running to and fro. Also, the episodes with Eva and Walther seemed completely nonsensical in those circumstances. Act 2 is set in Courtroom 600 in the Palace of Justice (where the Nuremberg Trials took place) covered in green grass, a representation of a Germanic paradise for Germans only. Gradually all characters appear with their proper costumes (but for Cosima), until Beckmesser is finally shown as a caricature Jew. The concept here had the upper hand: Eva and Walther’s romance against the background of Beckmesser’s serenade frustrated by Sachs leading to the confusion with David and the apprentices is here something almost entirely reduced to the lynching of Beckmesser. Act 3 too is staged in Courtroom 600, but only Wagner is judged here. The good people of Nuremberg get a pass: they are after all portrayed here as innocent puppets. I don’t have to say that this overambitious program impacts the romantic plot, comedy timing and the portrayal of these characters. Everything became secondary to Mr. Kosky’s construction, which added very little insight about the characters. His discussion about the composer is no novelty in itself. In any case, there were clever and beautiful stage solutions, the sets and costumes were creative and extremely well built.

Conductor Philippe Jordan’s search for the late-Karajan ideal of rich orchestral conveyed through the turbo version of legato, allied to a clear sense of forward movement, made this a very pleasing performance, with the exception of an extremely messy act 2. I am not sure if I find this the best approach to this opera, the complex score of which can always benefit of clear articulation and well-defined rhythms, but it seems that these performances are not about giving Meistersinger what it needs. In any case, they would have benefited from a cast more vocally impressive than this one.

Anne Schwanewilms, to start with, offered an unacceptable performance. It was barely hearable and, whenever she had to sing out, it was raspy, wiry and her breath wouldn’t last for more than three notes in a row. This is not Brünnhilde, and Germany has plenty of good lyric sopranos able to sing the role of Eva. Klaus Florian Vogt (Walther), on the other hand, sang very smoothly. Too smoothly, I would say. His high a’s needed a little bit more support to ring freely as they should, but, in the context of this evening, this was elegant and spontaneous. Daniel Behle was a musicianly and sensitive David who lacked projection in his high notes and relied too much on falsetto. Michael Volle’s baritone is two sizes smaller than the part of Sachs, but made the best of what he had with his intelligent delivery of the text and his stage charisma. Unfortunately, he was evidently tired in act 3 and had to cheat a bit to get to the end. His scene with Beckmesser was a bit bothersome, for both singers abused off-pitch effects, making it testing to the audience. Johannes Martin Kränzle (Beckmesser) proved to be capable of some smooth singing. Yet too often preferred “acting with the voice”. Wiebke Lehmkuhl was a light, fruity Magdalene and Günther Groissböck an exemplary Pogner.

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Bayerische Staatsoper,26.05.2016

Only a few hours before the congregation was chanting over the chords of the organ in the first scene of act I of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a procession had taken place in the Theatinerstrasse nearby: there was chanting, there was the organ and there were banners for the festivities of corpus christi. As nowhere else, this opera feels at home in Munich – it was premiered in what is called today the Bavarian State Opera and its setting is indeed Bavarian. This new production also features the city’s (and the world’s) star tenor. It is any wonder that director David Bösch decided to bring the action to the present time? A foreign eye would have some trouble to recognise this as “present time”, but this is what it looks like in small-town Germany.   In the Bavarian State Opera’s new production, Die Meistersinger takes place in some sort of Schlagerparadies, some sort of reality show à la Bauer sucht Frau, in which the audience/inhabitants of a decadent village eagerly await the town’s yearly song festival with special excitement, for the sponsor has promised his daughter to this edition’s winner. The small town has its share of social problems. Beckmesser is assaulted not only by David in the end of act II; a gang of masked teenagers armed with baseball bats attack him and vandalize the dreary Plattenbau complex where these characters live. Here Walther is evidently someone from a big city, who disapproves Sachs’s final plead for nationalism. Disgusted, he just takes Eva’s arm and leaves: there is a whole world outside. Even if the concept is clever – and the audience immediately recognized its imagery – what made this performance special was its efficient comedy timing. I had never truly laughed in a performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg until today. All members of the cast were fully integrated int its detailed Personenregie and felt easy and natural with that they had to do on stage, which was not always simple.

To make things better, my misgivings about Kirill Petrenko’s disastrous Ring in Bayreuth were immediately dispelled: this performance left nothing to be desired in terms of conducting. The Bavarian State Orchestra played richly, expressively and animatedly; the chorus coped with the heavy demand famously. Maestro Petrenko favored swift tempi, offered absolute clarity and placed the orchestra as this evening’s main soloist. Although the text is wordy and most scenes can seem declamatory, Wagner took the pains of keeping the melodic interest constantly on in his writing for the orchestra. Most conductors understans this and, on their intent of highlighting the orchestral “cantabile”  end on 0vershadowing singers and ultimately denying them lightness and textual variety. Not this evening, where the ideal balance was achieved: singers and orchestra blended in an organic theatrical and musical statement. Considering the overall sense of clarity and organization, the difficult ensemble in the end of act II was boldly paced in a rather fast beat, challenging to all musicians and surprisingly short in roughness.

I have always had bad luck with casting for this opera. Therefore, this happens to be the best group of singers I have seen in it, even if recordings show me that this could still be improved. No German soprano seems to be interested in the great German lyric roles these days, so here comes again Sara Jakubiak (Christian Thielemann’s Agathe in Dresden’s last Freischütz). As I said before, the Kiri Te Kanawa-like plushness is more than welcome and she survives the testing scene with Sachs in act III with poise (and trills commendably), but there are too many moments of tonal blandness and charmlessness to make it really unforgettable. Okka von der Damerau shows she can do lightness when necessary and offered a winning Magdalene.

The role of Walther ideally requires more clarity and smoothness than the now darker-voiced Jonas Kaufmann can provide. As a result, his performance seemed rather boorish and short in mellifluousness. Singing his own language, he was comfortable in deliverying his lines with spirit, but the interpretation was built rather in word-pointing than in tone-colouring. If he did produced his high notes strongly and firmly, the result was often more muscular than soaring. If there was a vocally exceptional moment this evening, this was the quintet, when his control of dynamics showed me new possibilities in this passage. His David, Benjamin Bruns – as always in this opera – projected more easily and naturally in the auditorium. His rounder tonal quality suggested rather a lyric tenor than a Charaktertenor, what is always pleasant in this part. Markus Eiche too was ideally cast as Beckmesser, in this production a more congenial yet tragic character than usual. He cleverly adopted a flowing, legato line as his character was actually “singing”  and dealt with the otherwise declamatory passages with crystalline diction. Wolfgang Koch has the required nobility of tone to the role of Hans Sachs and, as usual, handles the text with absolute naturalness and imagination. However, there are moments when the Alberich creeps in and makes the experience somewhat schyzophrenic. Christof Fischesser was rich in voice and spontaneous in attitude as Pogner. Among the Meistersinger, it was endearing to find the still splendidly fresh-toned Eike Wilm Schulte as Kothner and a powerfully dark-toned Peter Lobert as Hans Schwarz.

 

Read Full Post »

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tokyo Harusai, 07.04.2013

A few years, the Tokyo Harusai (Spring Festival) has opted for a Wagnerian Schwerpunkt, which is a concert performance of a Wagner opera with international casts and conductor every year. This series is supposed to culminate in a Ring cycle with Marek Janowskis starting from next year.

This year, the Harusai has decided to give the proceedings a Bayreuthian flavor by inviting conductor, tenor and baritone from Katharina Wagner’s production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Sebastian Weigle deserves many praises for his sensible choices – the performance was conducted on the safe but sure side, with exemplary internal balance and between orchestra and soloists. The NHK Symphony Orchestra often offered beautiful refulgent strings, accurate brass and volume in Wagnerian scale. These musicians still have to learn to have fun in “serious repertoire”, but the maestro never failed to inject animation right at the moments when they started to loose steam. The Tokyo Opera Singers too deserve praise for the firm, clear and beautiful choral singing this evening. This was certainly a highlight in this year’s concert calendar in Japan.

Replacing Gal James, Anna Gabler sang with beautiful legato and unfailing good taste, but her velvety voice sometimes lacks slancio in the more “Wagnerian” moments. In any case, she launched Selig wie die Sonne with absolute poise. Klaus Florian Vogt was not in his best voice this evening, his high notes often pinched.  This is nonetheless a role where he knows how to pull all the stops and he managed to “sell” his softer version of exposed acuti. Jörg Schneider is a congenial David who makes great use of the text, his Spieltenor easier on the ear than I would first believe. Maybe Vogt was victim of the hay-fever season, for Adrian Eröd too seemed to be below his usual level, his voice getting noticeably rougher during act II. He too is an intelligent and charismatic singer who could build a convincing performance in spite of that. I cannot say the same of Alan Held, a Hans Sachs of Wotan-ian amplitude but little variety who sounded tired and unfocused in act III. Günther Groissböck was an incisive, firm-toned Pogner (doubling as Nachtwächter) and Eijiro Kai was a forceful Fritz Kothner.

Read Full Post »

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürberg, Bayreuther Festspiele, 18.08.2011

Never say “never”. I clearly remember saying that I would never see Katharina Wagner’s staging of her great-grandfather’s Meistersinger, but here I am to witness its last performance before it is finally discarded for good. As in previous runs, the stage direction has been retouched and, if I may say something positive, I would acknowledge that it has now become more clearly a comedy – funny moments are better timed and there was more laughter from the audience this year than last time. That did not prevent, however, the director from being massively booed in the end. Don’t feel sorry for her – she seems to receive disapproval as a confirmation of her foresight unshared by her bourgeois audience. Naturally, she doesn’t mind cashing the money from ticket sales. In any case, I don’t think that the production was devoid of insight – there is some insight there that could be made into something truly thought-provoking and scenically efficient in the hands of a talented director. For instance, although the composer shows in his score that Beckmesser was rejected by the audience because he is not really talented, the fact remains that he was good enough to be accepted as a Meistersinger. If baritones resist the temptation of caricature, one can hear that he can handle, for example, florid singing. His sin could have been nothing but having indulged into the false glamor of French/Italian style (if we use Sachs’s final speech as a reference) – and therefore he would not conformed to the accepted standard, not because he was avant-garde (the concept probably does not apply here), but simply because his aesthetic approach was not… popular (and therefore inauthentic and bad, according to traditional principles of German cultural identity). This is not an uninteresting discussion, but Katharina Wagner does not have the stature to tackle it, both as a director and as an intellectual.

The fact that the musical side of the performance was below standard made the evening doubly testing for the audience. Last year, I found Sebastian Weigle’s conducting unclear yet rich-toned and structurally coherent. This evening, it was basically unclear. Although the sound is still irresistible in its warm tonal quality and blended sections, strings often failed to offer clean passagework, the level of mismatch with the stage was alarming and many passages were almost pointless in terms of horizontal clarity. The cast remains the same of last year with one notable exception. I have found Adrian Eröd a bit more consistent last time, but still very clean-toned and dramatically purposeful; Norbert Ernst is far more forceful, especially in his high notes, as David, but stills works hard for tonal and dynamic variety; James Rutherford’s grainy and often woolly bass-baritone does not suggest nobility, but he is a little bit more expressive this year. If I have to choose a favorite singer this evening, this would Georg Zeppenfeld, an ideal Pogner.

And there is Burkhard Fritz as Walther von Stolzing. I disagree with the opinion that his tenor is too light for this music – I have seen him previously in Schrecker’s Der ferne Klang in Berlin and found then that maybe there was a little more than Walther and Lohengrin in him. This evening, the voice sounded so poorly supported in acts 1 and 2 that one could almost guess that he would be announced indisposed, what proved to be true. Curiously, his illness was explained as “circulatory problems” and the he would try to go further. If he could not, Simon O’Neill would sing instead. But for a broken high g (or a), he sang to the end of the performance, probably better after the announce. Of course, the tougher part of the role comes in the first two acts – but then everything above a high e was basically pushed, unfocused and (therefore) strained. Once he began to sing more cautiously, softer attack made his voice brighter (yet lighter if ultimately audible) and even more pleasant. But legato was still faulty and pitch, eccentric. But, given the announced indisposition, one cannot tell if he needs to rethink his technique or just take care of his health.

Read Full Post »

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, 03.06.2011

When reviewing Janowski’s Parsifal with the RSB, I have written that clarity above richness of sound seemed to define the conductor’s approach to Wagner, especially if one has his recording of the Ring with the Staatskapelle Dresden in mind. Well, this evening proves that Janowski’s Wagnerian abilities are more varied than I thought. Maybe because Die Meistersinger is notoriously long and massive, the conductor might have hought that a little orchestral glamour could be helpful. And his musicians did not hang fire. The overture alone was worth the expensive ticket price – full orchestral sound without any loss of structural transparence and flexibility. Then the Rundfunkchor Berlin happened to be in top form. The evening had a promising start.

I had never seen this opera in concert version and never realized until this evening how much of a challenge it is to balance a big orchestra on stage and roles meant for lighter voices in many conversational passages, often in the middle register of singers’ voices. Janowski took the decision of not sacrificing his orchestra and allowed singers to be heard over it by a very small margin. In the end of act I, for example, instead of giving the tenor the opportunity to shine in Fanget an! , he would rather give pride of place to the sensuous ebb and flow of string sounds in a way that made me rethink the whole scene. Act II never sounded so organic, with the difficult transitions spontaneously and coherently handled. If I had to make any observation, this would regard the last scene, the “on stage” band could be a little bit subtler and more integrated with the main orchestra. I am tempted to say that the more “intimate” passages could have a bit more Innigkeit and less objectivity and forward-movement, but then I am not sure if we had this kind of cast this evening.

My first and foremost vocal interest this evening was Edith Haller’s Eva. I saw her Gutrune and Sieglinde in Bayreuth last year and found her simply outstanding. My first impression this evening was that her interpretation was too much about minauderie. Her Eva was desperately little-woman-ish, piping and pecking at notes old-Viennese style. One would have never believed she sings roles like Elsa or Sieglinde. Eventually I would start to suspect that she was simply not in good voice – some high notes were a bit sharp and often fixed and unflowing. Of course, she still has a lovely voice and had no problem piercing through the orchestra, but I will really have to hear her Eva again to say something about it. Michelle Breedt was a very charming Magdalene, supple and warm-toned. Robert Dean Smith has the right voice and personality for the role of Stolzing. He sings with exemplary legato, real feeling for the words and good taste. His high g’s and a’s could be a bit ampler and brighter, but were round and easy nonetheless. I have seen more flexible and varied Davids than Peter Sonn, but I confess I like his straight-to-the matter ways with the role. Thank God he is no tenorino, while the voice is warmer than the usual Spieltenor’s as well. Dietrich Henschel’s unfocused and often rough Beckmesser made one wonder why one would consider that Meistersinger-level. Albert Dohmen’s bass-baritone sounds too heavy and sometimes effortful in his high notes as Hans Sachs. The tone is not really noble, but the voice is large and he is able to keep clear articulation for more declamatory passages and even soften for one or two key moments. But the results were too often Wotan-like in a role where congeniality is important. Georg Zeppenfeld was an efficient Pogner, but Matti Salminen’s cameo as the Nachtwächter showed up his younger colleagues’ less classically Wagnerian voices.

Read Full Post »

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Bayreuther Festspiele, 12.08.2010

Does Katharina Wagner’s production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg need another beating? There are directors who still believe that there is a burgeoisie to be epatée, but, even if you don’t understand why they are trying to shock you out of your salary-earning opera-ticket-buying life, at least they succeed to shock you (the name of Calixto Bieito comes to my mind), but Katharina Wagner disappointed me – I had understood that this was a shocking production, but it is only a boring production of someone who fancied she was saying something original. In her staging, all characters are reduced to cardboard complexity and what is supposed to be the trade-off, a discussion about about conformism/success vs originality/marginalization, even as shown here with inverted signs, has the depth and novelty of a raindrop. We know that Harry Kupfer has done some great productions in which the polarity between characters is changed, especially his Lohengrin for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, in which Ortrud had right to accuse the delusional Elsa for killing her brother, but that was a result of a careful effort to find dormant ambiguities in the libretto. The rebel-without-a-cause who never took seriously the idea of becoming a Meistersinger in order to get the girl and, on getting her, pays the price of his originality in order to be established is simply not Walther von Stolzing, the already established self-assured gentleman who happens to discover his own voice on condescending to a bourgeois milieu in order to get the girl. Even if this is a twisted manouvre , at least there is a character development of some sort to speak of – poor old Sachs is a nonentity here, a provincial poet who profits of helping his rival in love just to drain him of a supposed geniality he himself envies. Is that the character for whom Wagner wrote music of such depth and nobility? I won’t say more, for the DVD can be easily purchased on-line and in CD stores – not by me, I am afraid, for Ms. Wagner’s family issues should be dealt with exclusively in the privacy of her home.

Sebastian Weigle’s conducting is the opposite of Katharina Wagner’s production – his orchestra is noble in color, solemn almost to a fault, rich in expressive, considerate tempi that require a more expressive cast to match. As the score tends to be ponderous and intricate, I tend to prefer a more objective, forward-moving approach featuring also clearer articulation, but that is a only a matter of taste. I know I tend to mention the closing of act II when I write about a performance of this opera, but that is a crucial scene extremely difficult to organize – and Mr. Weigle has done an excellent job in it. The orderliness had nothing stiff about it, the result being a extraordinarily spontaneous, with excellent contribution from the Festival chorus.

As in the Deutsche Oper, Michaela Kaune is a stylish, musicianly Eva, but her voice was even less focused than back in Berlin, when she had had a particularly beautiful moment leading the quintet. Klaus Florian Vogt too seemed less comfortable than in Berlin – his high notes a bit constricted. I still have to accustom myself to his disembodied tenor in this role that requires a more fervent tonal quality, but there is no denying that his is an unusually pleasant and natural voice used with good taste and stylishness. I must add that, although I disagree to the approach to the role of Stolzing in this production, Vogt embraced it with great skill, offering excellent acting. Adrian Eröd too excelled in the acting department and arguably produced the most satisfying performance in the evening, also adeptly and spiritedly sung. Norbert Ernst was a nimble, intelligent David, but a voice a little bit more generous would have enabled him to more variety. James Rutherford’s grainy bass-baritone is short in tonal and dynamic variety and also a couple of sizes too small for the role of Hans Sachs.

Read Full Post »

The wheat and the chaff

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is one of the the toughest cookies in the operatic repertoire. Technically, it is a comedy – but if you get ten instances of laughing during its almost five-hour length, this was a hilarious staging. Then the score involves impossibly complex ensembles with intricate counterpoint for soloists and chorus. To make things worse, the main roles require the subtlety of a Lieder singer and the dexterity of a bel canto specialist. In other words, if you want to listen to this opera, you have to be prepared to take the wheat AND the chaff – moreover because they are generally parts of the same thing.

The fact that Stefan Anton Reck was unable to conduct the whole run of performances finally proved to be a minor hazard, since Donald Runnicles, whose Wagnerian credentials are beyond any doubt, has taken over the baton. I haven’t had the luck of seeing Mr. Runnicles as often as I would like, but I have very good memories of a Rosenkavalier and a Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera. The fact that this evening’s performance was clearly below that level rather puzzled me, especially if one bears in mind that the Deutsche Oper orchestra is a more seasoned Wagnerian ensemble than the Met’s orchestra. I could imagine that limited number of rehearsals may be to blame. The famous overture did not highlight any of the house orchestra’s qualities – the color was unusually opaque, the brass section (particularly poor today) produced some unsubtle sounds and there was little sense of exuberance. The remaining act I lacked purpose and the fact that the scenery brought about disfiguring echo for anyone singing on stage right did not help much. Considering the monumental difficulties of act II, the level of mismatch was relatively reduced – and it must be pointed out that the conductor fortunately did not hold tempo back in order to make things easier. The sounds from the pit remained transparent, but kept on a level of volume comfortable for the singers and rather meagre for the audience. Pity that the chorus was not in its best shape either. Things tended to get into focus in act III, its pensive introduction particularly haunting, the whole Sachs/Walther/Eva was episode expressively handled and the quintet was sensitively conducted.

Having to write about Michaela Kaune always proves to be a difficult task for me. She is such a tasteful musician and her vocal nature is so lovely that it makes one doubly upset that the results are ultimately frustrating. The role of Eva should not pose her any difficulties – she is a lyric soprano who has the extra 5% to deal with the only stretch of jugendlich dramatisch singing in the whole part (i.e., O Sachs, mein Freund, du teurer Mann). However, she treats her creamy soprano rather heavily and the result is that either high-lying or more conversational passages sound rather colorless and unfocused.  Although her voice spread a bit during this difficult scene, something might have happened after that, for she launched Selig wie die Sonne in the grand manner. From this moment on, her voice sounded brighter, lighter, more concentrated and younger-sounding. If she consistently sang like that, she would belong to the great German lyric sopranos of our days.

I have previously seen Klaus Florian Vogt solely in the role of Lohengrin, in which his strangely boyish yet penetrating vocal quality underlines the character’s unearthliness. Walther is a rather more romantic leading man role – and his permanent mixed-tone approach to his top register and a lack of flowing legato in high-lying passages make the character less impetuous and ardent than one expects. The beauty and spontaneity of tone and his almost instrumental phrasing certainly make the character noble and touching, but I confess I wished for rich, full, vibrant top notes to crown the climaxes of the Preislied, for example.

I do not subscribe to the idea of showing Beckmesser as a ridiculous character and I regret the fact that the excellent Markus Brück has embraced the directorial choice with such passion to the point of nasalizing his dulcet baritone as he did. Beckmesser is a Meistersinger – and one who prizes his vocal abilities above his poetic imagination. His heavily decorated serenading probably means that he should sing with Bellinian poise. Maybe it is just a matter of taste, but I find that the plot gains more from a Beckmesser that offers some real competition than one portrayed like a manic goblin.

Kristinn Sigmundsson’s indisposition involved the last-minute replacement by Frank van Hove from Mannheim. As much as I like the Icelandic bass, van Hove’s spacious velvety bass was a pleasant surprise. If I have to fault Ulrike Helzel’s Magdalene, it would be because of her appealing and seductive high mezzo that made her often sound younger than Eva, what goes against the libretto. In the tiny role of the Nachtwächter, Krysztof Szumanski seized the occasion to display his firm voluminous bass. No wonder he received so warm applause.

I am afraid that James Johnson’s Sachs is a serious piece of miscast. Although he has very clear German and tackles declamatory passages very well, his bass-baritone has a rusty, curdled quality that robs the character of all spiritual nobility and likability. And that is something Hans Sachs cannot part with. David is a difficult and important role, who has a challenging aria that catalogues every kind of vocal difficulty. It requires A-casting – Herbert von Karajan, for example, had Peter Schreier both in his Dresden studio recording and in his live Salzburg performances in 1974 (where he gave René Kollo a run for his money). Paul Kaufmann is a congenial actor and has the right ideas about the role, but the voice is a bit small for the theatre.

Although Götz Friedrich’s production was premièred in 1993, it is impregnated with the aesthetic of the 1980’s. The sets serve a pointless aesthetic concept turning around a circumscribed square, costumes follow disparate styles and the direction of actors (under Gerlinde Pelkowski’s responsibility) involve the heavy utilization of cliché and awkward slapstick comedy.

Read Full Post »