Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Heidi Stober (Eva), Klaus Florian Vogt (Walther), Ya-Chung Huang (David), Philipp Jekal (Beckmesser), Johan Reuter (Hans Sachs), Albert Pesendorfer (Pogner), Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus and Orchestra, John Fiore

Triumphantly premiered in 1868, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg evokes the singing guilds of mid-16th-century Nuremburg, a focal point of the Northern European Renaissance. Wagner’s only mature comic opera concerns the young knight Walther von Stolzing’s love for Eva whom the town clerk Beckmesser also covets. Against the background of a singing contest, cobbler-singer Hans Sachs’ nobility ensures the reconciliation of youth and age, and tradition and innovation. Deutsche Oper Berlin’s provocative new staging was considered ‘entertaining throughout’ and ‘thought-provoking’ by BR Klassik.

December 2023

throughout, the musical values of the performance prove high, with Fiore showing an excellent grasp of the work’s long paragraphs, pacing the score beautifully and proving alert – but never slave – to its bustling detail. The Deutsche Oper fields a fine ensemble cast, too. Johan Reuter might be a relatively light-voiced Sachs but sings the role persuasively.