The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

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Work data
Title: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg
Original language: German
Music: Richard Wagner
Libretto : Richard Wagner
Premiere: June 21, 1868
Place of premiere: National Theater Munich
Playing time: approx. 4:20 hours
  • 1st act: approx. 1:20 hours
  • 2nd act: approx. 1:00 hours
  • 3rd act: approx. 2:00 hours
Place and time of the action: Nuremberg, mid-
16th century
people
  • Mastersingers
    • Hans Sachs , shoemaker ( bass baritone )
    • Veit Pogner, goldsmith ( bass )
    • Kunz Vogelgesang, furrier ( tenor )
    • Konrad Nachtigall, Spengler (bass)
    • Sixtus Beckmesser, town clerk ( baritone )
    • Fritz Kothner, baker (bass)
    • Balthasar Zorn, pewter caster (tenor)
    • Ulrich Eißlinger, Würzkrämer (tenor)
    • Augustin Moser, Schneider (tenor)
    • Hermann Ortel, soap boiler (bass)
    • Hans Schwarz, stocking knitter (bass)
    • Hans Foltz , coppersmith (bass)
  • further roles
    • Walther von Stolzing, a young knight from Franconia (tenor)
    • David, apprentice Hans Sachs' (tenor)
    • Eva, Pogner's daughter ( soprano )
    • Magdalene, Eva's nurse (soprano); also mezzo-soprano, dramatic alto or play alto; is usually occupied by a mezzo-soprano in stage practice today.
    • A night watchman (bass)
    • Apprentices ( alto , tenor)

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg ( WWV 96) is an opera or satyr play by the composer Richard Wagner in three acts based on a libretto written by himself. The first performance took place on June 21, 1868 in Munich . The playing time is around 4 ½ hours.

action

First act: Katharinenkirche in Nuremberg

In Nuremberg during the Reformation period, the wealthy goldsmith Veit Pogner promised his only daughter Eva to marry anyone who would win the prize in a singing competition on the upcoming St. John's Day . After the service in honor of St. John the Baptist in Nuremberg's Katharinenkirche in the middle of Lorenz's old town , Eva meets the young knight Walther von Stolzing again, the impoverished last descendant of his family who moved to Nuremberg. Both had met the night before during a visit by Walther to the Pogner's house and immediately fell in love with each other. In the church, Walther only gets Eva's statement that she is too free, but that she has long since given her heart away to him, had it not been for the father's condition: “It has to be a mastersinger.” So Walther von Stolzing dares and applies, previously instructed by Hans Sachs' apprentice, David, during the evening meeting of the masters in the Katharinenkirche, the meeting and singing room of the Nuremberg Mastersingers, with a rehearsal singing to win the title of Mastersinger and thus Eva's hand.

Sixtus Beckmesser, city ​​clerk in Nuremberg, belongs to the guild of Mastersingers , in which he holds the office of " Merker ". He already believed himself to be the sure winner of the competition because he could assume that he was the only participant. He was only concerned about the rule that Eva had to agree to the election. His attempts to get Pogner to change this restriction fail. Beckmesser's concerns and suspicions intensified when Walther von Stolzing, a new applicant and competitor for the master’s prize, appeared. The rules of the Mastersingers require that the first step towards acceptance into the guild is to pass a rehearsal singing. Beckmesser has to check him as a marker, and with obvious partiality he effortlessly succeeds in convincing the masters present - with the exception of Hans Sachs - that the applicant has "lost" due to numerous mistakes and is not suitable as a member and mastersinger. The first act ends in the general turmoil of the Mastersingers, who were incited by Beckmesser to insist on strict adherence to the rules, whereby Walther's song, which he tries to sing to the end, is completely lost. The thoughtful Sachs, however, recognizes Stolzing's intentions and argues against the prejudices of the established masters:

Stop, master! Not in a hurry!
Not everyone shares your opinion. -
The knight's song and song
I found it new, but not confused:
he left our tracks
he strode firmly and undeterred.
Do you want to measure by rules
what does not run according to your rules,
forget your own trail,
first look for the rules!

Duration: about 80 minutes

Second act: Street in Nuremberg

At the beginning of the second act, it is evening, Sachs enjoys the balmy Johannisnacht and poetized: What really smells of lilacs , so mild, so strong and full! He loosens my limbs softly, wants me to say something. -

Sachs worries about the Junker's song performance, on the one hand he couldn't keep what he heard, on the other hand he couldn't forget it and also couldn't measure it, because no rule wanted to fit… “and yet there was no mistake. - It sounded so old and yet it was so new! ”He not only recognizes what is new in the art of song, but also the love between Stolzing and Eva and renounces his ambitions. He thinks he is too old to marry young Eva. Beckmesser is still on “Freier's feet”; He announces his ambitions for Eva and wants to sing to her, whom he thinks he sees at the window - in truth Magdalene has taken her place in disguise - the song he wrote for the singing contest the next day and accompany himself on his lute. But the enamored town clerk is disturbed by the cobbler Sachs. Sachs now plays the strict "marker" and comments on the verses and the melody of the lute-playing recruiter, composed according to the strict old master rules, in his own way, namely by hitting the soles of his shoes with a hammer - a parallel to the marker scene of the first act in which Beckmesser loudly wrote down Walther's mistakes on a blackboard in chalk. Plucking the lute (imitated by a "small steel harp" in the opera), minne singing and shoemaker knocking wake up the sleeping neighbors and it comes to one of the most original and turbulent choral scenes in opera history, the beating scene as a large choral fugue, a musical "fugato" of extreme sophistication. Beckmesser, beaten up by the jealous David, leaves the stage as a disheveled victim at the end of the second act. In the general turmoil, Sachs prevents Stolzing and Eva's escape. When the night watchman appears, blows the horn and announces that the bell has struck "Elfe", calm returns to Nuremberg.

Duration: about 60 minutes

Third act, first to fourth scene: Saxony's office

Hans Sachs broods early in the morning in his armchair about the “madness” of the world (mad monologue) and the strange events of the previous night. In the nocturnal tumult, Hans Sachs saved Walther von Stolzing to his house. Sachs is convinced of the young knight's extraordinary talent, and so in the morning he gets him to use the description of a dream to compose a true “master song” that would stand up to the rules of the guild. Stolzing is skeptical at first: How should a song come from his dream? Sachs replies:

Eugen Gura as Hans Sachs
My friend! That degree is poet's work
that he interprets and notes his dreams.
Believe me, man’s truest delusion
is opened to him in a dream:
all poetry and poetry
is nothing but true dream German ...

Walther tells, sings, then his morning dream and finds the poetic form by itself. Sachs, who is taking notes, is impressed and - with all his poetic and musical freedom - is able to derive the general rule.

Beckmesser, who visits Sachs shortly afterwards, in need because of his failed song and badly damaged by the nightly fight, finds the text and accuses the widower Sachs of secretly trying to woo Eva himself, although he has always denied it. Sachs reaffirms that he does not want to appear as an advertiser and gives Beckmesser the song, which he is delighted to pocket. Nothing can go wrong with a song by Sachs, he says. Meanwhile, Eva, also seeking advice, has joined Sachs. Sachs, who himself, although he did not want to woo her, feels a deep sympathy for Eva, bordering on love, but realizes in time that Walther von Stolzing is the only right one and Eva is the right bride for him and renounces himself. Walther carries Sachs and Eva spontaneously recites another stanza of his newly composed master song, Sachs speaks a symbolic baptismal motto on it and calls it Walther's “Blessed Morgentraum-Deutweise”. Then in a contemplative moment, a reflection, as it were pausing the action before it goes to the festival meadow, a quintet of Sachs, Eva, Walther, the newly made journeyman David and his bride Magdalene. They each praise the luck of the hour from their point of view. Eva sings: "Blessed, how the sun of my happiness laughs ...".

Third act, fifth scene: a free meadow plan in front of the city of Nuremberg

Stage design by Helmut Juergens for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Festwiese, performance of the Bavarian State Opera, Munich, 1949

A musical transformation leads from the shoemaker's parlor to the festival meadow, where the people have already gathered and await the festive entry of the Mastersingers. Sachs is hymnically greeted with a chorale , the famous: Wake up, the day is approaching ...

Then the singing of the St. John's Festival begins . Beckmesser starts the song given to him by Sachs, but fails miserably at the lecture because the script is difficult to read for him and he therefore misrepresents the text and also tries to sing to his own inappropriate melody. Angrily, he throws the sheet of paper on the floor, explains to the amazed crowd that the song was not his at all, that Sachs had deliberately forced a bad song on him, and leaves the stage, laughed and humiliated. Sachs explains that the song is not from him and calls Walther von Stolzing as a witness, who is supposed to prove by a correct presentation that he is the poet of the song. Stolzing performs his song ( morning shining in the rosy glow ...) and is completely convincing, including all the masters present who had criticized him the evening before. The masters solemnly declare his acceptance into the Mastersingers Guild, but Walther initially refuses - “wants to be happy without a master!”. Sachs instructs Walther not to forget the tradition in which he himself stands and admonishes him: "Do not despise the masters for me, and honor their art!" He reconciles the differences and concludes his address with an urgent warning:

what is German and genuine, no one knows anymore,
it does not live in German master honor '.
So I tell you:
honor your German masters!
Then you banish good spirits;
and give her work favor,
melted in a mist
the Holy Roman Empire,
we would stay the same
holy German art!

All those involved on stage: the people, the masters and also Stolzing, who is now accepting the championship honor, euphorically agree with Sachs: “Heil! Sachs! Nuremberg's expensive Sachs! "

Duration: about 120 minutes

Historical background

In contrast to most of Wagner's other musical dramas, the work has no recognizable mythological background. The surface of the work is based entirely on history. Wagner lets people from the time of Nuremberg perform in the age of the Reformation, in the 16th century, including the poet Hans Sachs . This poet and master shoemaker (1494–1576), venerated in Nuremberg and all of southern Germany, was one of the most productive German poets with over 6,000 works (approx. 4,000 master songs, approx. 1800 proverbs, approx. 200 dramas, fables and jokes). He was not only the most famous representative of the master singers, but was also considered a generous person. For example, he suggested that the assessment of master songs from his Nuremberg guild should not only be left to the four markers, but that this should be transferred to the audience several times a year.

Richard Wagner took his knowledge of the rules of the Mastersingers (the "tablature") above all from the Nuremberg Chronicle published in 1697 with an appendix "Von der Meister-Singer gracious art" by Johann Christoph Wagenseils (1633–1705), who incidentally made this pedantic Regulations traced back to the strict rules and regulations of the Jewish Talmud. The supposedly already in the 14th century written set of tablature which the music of the court minstrel should adapt to the needs of their civil successor, is also a detailed insight into the former life of the master craftsmen .

However, Wagner only adopted Wagenseil's names, rules and Meistersinger customs. The actions and the professions of the masters arise for the most part from Wagner's imagination. He also used his own experiences, such as the experience of a nocturnal singing fight with a fight, in which he himself was involved at a young age (1835 in Nuremberg), and literary sources such as ETA Hoffmann's "Meister Martin, der Küfner, und seine Gesellen" from the short story collection The Serapion Brothers . He must also have known Johann Ludwig Deinhardstein's play Hans Sachs (first performance 1827) and the opera Hans Sachs by Albert Lortzing based on it (first performance 1840).

The word master-singer has a double meaning. On the one hand, all members of the guilds at the time were masters in their respective occupations; on the other hand, the Mastersingers formed their own, respected guild in many German cities , in whose five-tier ranking system the master's title, analogous to the craftsman's profession, could only be achieved through a real masterpiece. Wagner of course caricatures a few excesses - above all in the person of the strict town clerk Beckmesser , whose name has become synonymous with narrow-minded pedantry .

Choice of historic Nuremberg as the location for the opera

The city of Nuremberg developed into one of the most important German trading centers in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries and experienced “its economic, political and cultural heyday at the time of Hans Sachs.” In the middle of the 16th century it had 40,000–50,000 inhabitants "Next to Cologne and Augsburg the only 'cosmopolitan city' in Germany" This economic boom enabled the craftsmen to “develop their own self-confidence”. Nuremberg was the center of the book printing and book trade and, thanks to good international trade relations, became the "most important 'news center' of the German Reich". The role of Nuremberg as a Reformation avant-garde also challenged the "little man" to "deal with public affairs, be it political or religious".

Emergence

Memorial plaque in Biebrich
Country house on the Rhine in Biebrich

Wagner wrote the first sketch for the opera in 1845 during a spa stay in Marienbad . His intention was to create a cheerful counterpart in the sense of a satyr play to the tragically ending Tannhauser . The draft was initially left unprocessed. It was not until 1861 that Wagner remembered when he was looking for new operatic material for a successful piece that could be realized quickly in order to save himself from acute financial difficulties. During a short stay in Venice , the sight of a picture of Mary ( Assunta ) by Titian is said to have moved him so much that he spontaneously decided to carry out the Mastersingers of Nuremberg .

However, Wagner actually started the preparation immediately afterwards and produced a new design, which he offered to his Mainz publisher Franz Schott , who then commissioned him with the completion at short notice and paid Wagner a substantial advance. Wagner immediately went to Paris , where he wrote the poetry in complete seclusion in just 30 days.

At the beginning of February 1862 he traveled to Mainz and read the text at the Schott publishing house. In order to be able to compose in peace, he moved into a country house in Wiesbaden-Biebrich on the banks of the Rhine . The Meistersinger Overture was written, apart from a few loose musical sketches, in a few weeks after the text was completed between Palm Sunday and Easter (April 13th to 20th) 1862. This orchestral introduction, known as the “Prelude”, was in the year of its creation and before the whole opera was finished, presented to the audience at a concert under Wagner's direction in Leipzig . It was only after Wagner found a sponsor in King Ludwig II of Bavaria that he was able to finish the composition of his “Meistersinger”, which finally premiered on June 21, 1868 in Munich. Hans von Bülow , who had already conducted Tristan and Isolde in the same place for the first time in 1865 , stood at the podium .

Apart from his early, rarely performed work Das Liebesverbot , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is the only comic opera that Wagner wrote - he did not, however, describe it as such, as it also contains dark, melancholy nuances. After the ecstatic musical plot of Tristan and Isolde , in which Wagner formulated the longing for love, which was in vain until the end, he created an atmosphere here that is dominated by the festive, solemn key of C major and numerous chorales and fugues. “The Mastersingers” celebrate art itself and its religious exaggeration. In this work, Wagner also quotes ancient musical forms and describes his work as "applied Bach ".

With “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” the second Munich opera house, the Prinzregententheater , was inaugurated in Munich on August 21, 1901. It is a scaled-down copy of the Bayreuth Festival Theater and was intended to compete with it . The Cologne Opera opened in 1902 with the 3rd act. Even when the new Nuremberg Opera House opened in 1905 , "Die Meistersinger" was played - not least because of the local connection. Likewise in Leipzig in 1960 for the opening of the only new opera building in the GDR , in Munich in 1963 for the reopening of the rebuilt National Theater, which was destroyed during the war, and in 1988 in Essen for the opening of the Aalto Theater .

In 1867 Wagner gave the original score of the opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg to the Bavarian King Ludwig II. In 1902 the precious original was presented to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

music

orchestra

The orchestra is made up as follows:

2 flutes , piccolo , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets in Bb, 2 bassoons , 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion ( bass drum , cymbals , triangle , glockenspiel (actually keyboard glockenspiel )), harp (with “ cymbal knife -Harp "), strings .

Furthermore, various trumpets and horns (three voices), a “bull horn ” from the night watchman in F sharp / Ges, a lute (played by the harp as a “Beckmesser harp”), military drums and an organ are used on the stage.

The score contains a number of instruments orchestral excerpts , especially in the prelude.

composition

After Tristan's chromatic “Nocturne” , Wagner wrote a brilliantly bright diatonic “Tagstück” in C major in the guise of the Meistersinger von Nürnberg . The Meistersinger are designed seen as contrasting "counterpart" to Tristan. The Tristan harmony, however, is not simply erased in the Meistersinger , but rather only encapsulated and stored in a diatonic outer shell, to be restored, especially in the third act of the opera, in which Wagner brings the autobiographically drawn "renouncing" Hans Sachs to the fore to break out openly.

Characteristic for the music of Tristan as well as the Meistersinger is Wagner's subtle and unobtrusive handling of the leitmotif technique as well as an enormously increased polyphonic elaboration of the composition compared to the previous works : In fact, Gustav Mahler judged Wagner , "really polyphonic" only in Tristan and in the Mastersingers . The “Tristan chord principle” in the sense of a condensation of leitmotivic meaning in a single point, that is to say: the individual chord, is also alive in the Meistersinger, yes it is even expanded here. A study by Johannes Schild from 2014 named the Meistersingers “a set of four chord emblems [...], each with its own sphere of expression and meaning”. The major triad here stands for the sphere of art, the excessive triad for Hans Sachs, the beta chord for “love, spring and passion” and the Tristan chord for that autobiographical renunciation sphere that Wagner in the final libretto version from 1861 the Hans Sachs figure had inscribed. Seen in this way, the music of the Mastersingers is not only to be seen in a row with Tristan , but also with the late works Götterdämmerung and Parsifal , for which Theodor W. Adorno had already named a corresponding "chord motif" in his Wagner work of 1952.

The Meistersinger , recognized as one of Wagner's greatest works for a long time, found a divided reception during the composer's lifetime. One of the ardent admirers of the work was Johannes Brahms , who thought that a “few bars” by the Meistersinger were “more valuable [...] than all the operas that were composed afterwards.” The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick , who, after he had already whom Tristan had scourged as "sung and violated opium intoxication", and the music of the Mastersingers didn’t leave a good impression either . His review of the Vienna premiere of the work on February 27, 1870, despite all the excessive polemics, remains a key text to the early reception of Meistersinger. Characteristic for the piece, according to Hanslick, is "the conscious dissolution of all solid forms into a shapeless, sensually intoxicating sound [and] the replacement of independent, structured melodies by a shapeless, vague melodising". Correctly, albeit in a pejorative tone, Hanslick also analyzes the typical Wagner technique of connecting sections, which is sometimes referred to as the “permanent fallacy ”. Hanslick literally: “With fearful avoidance of every final cadence, this boneless clay mollusk [...] flows away into the unpredictable. For fear of the 'ordinaryness' of the natural full or half closings, Wagner lapses into a different, not at all better pedantry: he becomes monotonous precisely because he regularly turns into a dissonant chord where the ear expects a final triad. "

In contrast, later authors praised the formal characteristics: Alfred Lorenz referred to the ubiquity of the bar form , from the smallest motifs to the layout of the entire work, and leads 62 more or less precise and allegedly intended correspondences between the processes of the first two " Stollen ”file. Eckhard Henscheid certified the work as "dramatic perfection and macro- as well as micro-architectural flawlessness".

Scenic implementation and intentions of Richard Wagner

Wagner wanted to reform the "decadent" theater with his art. Instead of shallow conversation, which he had got to know particularly during his stay in Paris, he advocated high-quality art education and ultimately developed his idea for the festival from this. His ideal conception was a “German art” originating and supported by the people, whereby he wanted the national to be understood only as a decorative element: “In this way, the work of art of the future should embrace the spirit of free mankind beyond all barriers of nationalities; the national essence in it can only be an ornament, a charm of individual diversity, not an inhibiting barrier. ”The much criticized and often interpreted as nationalistic concluding sentence by Hans Sachs at the end of the opera says nothing other than that German art would survive if the German Empire also perished: if the holy Roman Empire melted in the mist, we would be left with holy German art. Wagner's revolutionary art ideas, however, met with rejection in the conservative art world in his time.

In the “Meistersingern” Wagner takes on people and structures of the established society and the art establishment with a lot of humor and originality. He lets the shoemaker poet Hans Sachs , who is open to new things, and the “art-innovative” knight Walther von Stolzing fight for his ideals, for artistic freedom itself. While Walther stands for the revolutionary new, Sachs - with all his tolerance - also advocates the preservation of the traditional in art and admonishes Walther: Don't despise the masters for me, and honor their art ... In Sachs, Wagner sees the last appearance of the artistically productive folk spirit and confronts it with the philistine bourgeoisie, trapped in the formalism of rigid rules . Stolzing is the “innovator” (art revolutionary), as Wagner ultimately saw himself as.

Duration (using the example of the Bayreuth Festival)

At the Bayreuth Festival it was customary to document the length of the individual lifts, but neither all years nor all performances of the same work and also not always all acts were recorded there. The type of voice and the temperament of the singers also had an impact on the duration, so that the respective conductors had different lengths of acts. The times mentioned here only include performances for which all three acts were documented.

Overview (1888 to 1975)
The Mastersingers
of Nuremberg
1st act 2nd act 3rd act Total duration
Hours. conductor Hours. conductor Hours. conductor Hours. conductor
Shortest duration 1:11 Fritz Busch 0:55 Hermann Abendroth 1:54 Fritz Busch 4:05 Fritz Busch
Longest duration 1:28 Hans Knappertsbusch 1:07 Hans Knappertsbusch 2:09 Hans Knappertsbusch 4:40 Hans Knappertsbusch
Span * 0:17 (24%) 0:12 (22%) 0:15 (13%) 0:35 (16%)

* Percentages refer to the shortest duration.

Playing time with individual conductors of the Bayreuth Festival (in hours)
year conductor 1st act 2nd act 3rd act Total duration
1888 Hans Richter 1:23 1:01 2:00 4:24
1892 Felix Mottl 1:22 0:59 1:55 4:16
1924 Fritz Busch 1:11 1:00 1:54 4:05
1925 Karl Muck 1:20 0:59 2:00 4:19
1933 Karl Elmendorff 1:20 1:00 2:05 4:25
Heinz Tietjen 1:25 1:05 2:03 4:33
1943 Hermann Abendroth 1:27 0:55 1:58 4:20
Wilhelm Furtwängler 1:19 0:56 2:00 4:15
1951 Herbert von Karajan 1:22 0:59 2:02 4:23
1952 Hans Knappertsbusch 1:26 1:05 2:09 4:40
1956 André Cluytens 1:23 1:00 2:00 4:23
1959 Erich Leinsdorf 1:22 1:00 1:55 4:17
1960 Hans Knappertsbusch 1:28 1:07 2:04 4:39
1961 Josef Krips 1:25 1:04 2:08 4:37
1963 Thomas Schippers 1:22 0:58 2:00 4:20
1964 Karl Bohm 1:16 0:59 1:57 4:12
Robert Heger 1:23 1:01 2:05 4:29
1968 Karl Bohm 1:18 0:58 1:56 4:12
Berislav Klobučar 1:17 0:58 1:55 4:10
1970 Hans Wallat 1:23 1:00 2:01 4:24
1:18 1:01 1:59 4:18
1973 Silvio Varviso 1:18 0:58 1:56 4:12
1975 Heinrich Hollreiser 1:19 0:59 1:55 4:13

To the figure of the Beckmesser

Recordings (selection)

Historical documents:

Later recordings:

Honors

In 1968 the Deutsche Bundespost issued a postage stamp on the 100th anniversary of the premiere.

Edits

In 2012, the play “Meistersinger” by Matthias Eichele was created, which brings the - extended - plot of the opera to the stage in contemporary language as a comedy for spoken theater . Musical topics such as David's instruction, the creation of the prize song or the nocturnal serenade are translated into purely literary terms.

As part of the application for the title “European Capital of Culture 2025”, the world premiere of Selcuk Cara's musical adaptation of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with spoken text took place on June 28, 2020 in the building complex of the congress hall on the former Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg . The former opera singer Selcuk Cara took over the concept, spoken text and direction as well as the areas of artistic production management, stage space, lighting design and costume.

bibliography

swell

  • John Deathridge / Martin Geck / Egon Voss: Wagner work directory. Directory of the musical works of Richard Wagner and their sources , Mainz (Schott) 1986.
  • Richard Wagner: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , first edition of the score, Mainz (Schott Verlag) 1868.
  • Richard Wagner: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , facsimile of the autograph libretto, Mainz (Schott) sa [1862].
  • Richard Wagner: Drafts for "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg", "Tristan and Isolde", "Parsifal" , ed. Hans von Wolzüge, Leipzig (seal) 1907.
  • Richard Wagner: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , facsimile of the autograph score, Munich (Dreimasken Verlag) 1922.
  • Richard Wagner: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , WWV 96, historical-critical edition, ed. Egon Voss, 3 volumes, Mainz (Schott) 1980–1987.
  • Richard Wagner: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , facsimile of the autograph libretto, ed. Egon Voss, Mainz (Schott) 1982.

Secondary literature

  • Theodor W. Adorno : Experiment on Wagner , "Gesammelte Schriften", vol. 13, Frankfurt (Suhrkamp) 1971.
  • Frank P. Bär: Wagner - Nuremberg - Meistersinger: Richard Wagner and the real Nuremberg of his time , Verlag des Germanisches Nationalmuseums , Nuremberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-936688-74-0 .
  • Dieter Borchmeyer : Richard Wagner's theater. Idea ─ Poetry ─ Effect , Stuttgart (Reclam) 1982.
  • Patrick Carnegy, Wagner and the Art of the Theater , New Haven / CT (Yale University Press) 2006, ISBN 0-300-10695-5 .
  • Attila Csampai / Dietmar Holland (eds.): Richard Wagner, "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg". Texts, materials, comments , Reinbek (Rowohlt) 1981.
  • Carl Dahlhaus : Wagner's conception of the musical drama , Regensburg (Bosse) 1971, 2nd edition: Munich / Kassel (dtv / Bärenreiter) 1990.
  • Carl Dahlhaus : The delusional monologue of Hans Sachs and the problem of the form of development in musical drama , in: Yearbook for Opera Research 1/1985, pp. 9-25.
  • Ludwig Finscher : About the counterpoint of the Mastersingers , in: Carl Dahlhaus (ed.), Richard Wagner's drama as a musical work of art , Regensburg (Bosse) 1970, pp. 303–309.
  • Lydia Goehr: "- as Master Dürer painted him!": Contest, Myth, and Prophecy in Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" , in: Jornal of the American Musicological Society 64/2011, pp. 51–118.
  • Arthur Groos: Constructing Nuremberg: Typological and Proleptic Communities in "Die Meistersinger", in: 19th-Century Music 16/1992, pp. 18–34.
  • Arthur Groos: Pluristilismo e intertestualità: I “Preislieder” nei “Meistersinger von Nürnberg” e nella “Ariadne auf Naxos” , in: Opera & Libretto , 2/1993; Olschki, Firenze, pp. 225-235.
  • Helmut Grosse / Norbert Götz (eds.): The Mastersingers and Richard Wagner. The history of the reception of an opera from 1868 to today , "Exhibition catalog of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg", Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 1981.
  • Walter Jens: Nature and Art: Richard Wagner's "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg". A rhetorical lesson , in: programa del Festival di Bayreuth, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Bayreuth (Bayreuther Festspiele) 1982, pp. 1–13.
  • Klaus Günter Just: Richard Wagner ─ a poet? Marginalia on the opera libretto of the 19th century , in: Stefan Kunze (Ed.), Richard Wagner. From opera to music drama , Bern / Munich (Francke) 1978, pp. 79–94.
  • Marc Klesse: Richard Wagner's »Mastersingers of Nuremberg«. Literary and cultural studies readings on artistry and art production , Munich (AVM) 2018.
  • Jürgen Kolbe (Ed.): Wagner's Worlds. Catalog for the exhibition in the Münchner Stadtmuseum 2003-2004 , Munich / Wolfratshausen (Minerva) 2003.
  • Stefan Kunze (Ed.): Richard Wagner. From opera to music drama , Bern / Munich (Francke) 1978.
  • Stefan Kunze : Richard Wagner's concept of art , Regensburg (Bosse) 1983.
  • Jörg Linnenbrügger: Richard Wagner's "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg". Studies and materials on the genesis of the first elevator (1861-1866) , Göttingen (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) 2001.
  • Alfred Lorenz: The secret of form with Richard Wagner , Volume 3, Berlin (Max Hesse) 1931, Reprint Tutzing (Schneider) 1966.
  • Jürgen Maehder : Wagner research versus Verdi research ─ Comments on the different stages of development of two musicological sub-disciplines , in: Arnold Jacobshagen (Ed.), Verdi and Wagner, Cultures of the Opera , Vienna / Cologne (Böhlau) 2014, pp. 263–291, ISBN 978-3-412-22249-9 .
  • Jürgen Maehder : The Intellectual Challenge of Staging Wagner: Staging Practice at Bayreuth Festival from Wieland Wagner to Patrice Chéreau , in: Marco Brighenti / Marco Targa (eds.), Mettere in scena Wagner. Opera e regia fra Ottocento e contemporaneità , Lucca (LIM) 2019, pp. 151–174.
  • Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (ed.): Richard Wagner, designer of modernity. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-608-91979-1 .
  • Volker Mertens: Richard Wagner and the Middle Ages , in: Ulrich Müller / Ursula Müller (eds.), Richard Wagner und seine Mittelalter , Anif / Salzburg (Müller-Speiser) 1989, pp. 9–84.
  • Barry Millington: Nuremberg Trial: Is there Anti-Semitism in "Die Meistersinger"? , in: Cambridge Opera Journal 3/1991, pp. 247-260.
  • Barry Millington: The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music , London (Thames & Hudson) 1992, ISBN 978-0-500-28274-8 .
  • Ulrich Müller / Ursula Müller (eds.): Richard Wagner und seine Mittelalter , Anif / Salzburg (Müller-Speiser) 1989.
  • Ulrich Müller / Oswald Panagl: Ring and Graal. Texts, comments and interpretations on Richard Wagner's “The Ring of the Nibelung”, “Tristan and Isolde”, “The Mastersingers of Nuremberg” and “Parsifal” , Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann) 2002.
  • Dieter Schickling: "Slim and effective". Giacomo Puccini and the Italian premiere of the “Meistersinger von Nürnberg” , in: Musik & Ästhetik 4/2000, pp. 90–101.
  • Klaus Schultz (Ed.): Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , program of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich (Bayerische Staatsoper) 1979 (essays by Peter Wapnewski , Hans Mayer , Stefan Kunze , John Deathridge, Egon Voss , Reinhold Brinkmann).
  • Michael von Soden (Ed.): Richard Wagner. The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , Frankfurt (Insel) 1983.
  • Jeremy Tambling: Opera and Novel ending together: "Die Meistersinger" and "Doktor Faustus" , in: Forum for Modern Language Studies 48/2012, pp. 208-221.
  • Hans Rudolf Vaget: Wailed Legacy. On the »metapolitics« of the »Mastersingers of Nuremberg« , in: Musik & Ästhetik 6/2002, pp. 23–39.
  • Nicholas Vaszonyi (Ed.): Wagner's Meistersinger. Performance, History, Representation , Rochester / NY (Univ. Of Rochester Press) 2002, ISBN 978-158-046168-9 .
  • Egon Voss: »Wagner and no end«. Considerations and studies , Zurich / Mainz (Atlantis) 1996.
  • Peter Wapnewski : The sad god. Richard Wagner in his heroes , Munich (CH Beck) 1978.
  • Peter Wapnewski : Richard Wagner. The scene and its master , Munich (CH Beck) 1978.
  • John Warrack (Ed.): "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" , Cambridge Opera Handbook, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1994, ISBN 0-521-44895-6 .
  • Johannes Karl Wilhelm Willers (Ed.): Hans Sachs and the Mastersingers , "Exhibition catalog of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg", Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 1981.
  • Franz Zademack: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. Richard Wagner's poetry and its sources , Berlin (Dom Verlag) 1921.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Reinhard Pietsch: "Prendi la mia chitarra ..." Guitar and mandolin in operas of the 18th and 19th centuries (part 3). In: Guitar & Laute 5, 1983, 5, pp. 334-347; here: p. 337.
  2. http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Sachs,+Hans/Gedichte/Saghgedichte+%28Auswahl%29/Die+wittembergisch+nachtigal
  3. cf. Digitized version of the Wagenseil tract from 1697.
  4. Feuerstein, Ulrich / Schwarz, Patrik: Hans Sachs as chronicler of his time - the master song year 1546 , in: Stephan Füssel (ed.): Hans Sachs at the intersection of antiquity and modern times , Nuremberg 1995, pp. 83-107 (Pirckheimer Jahrbuch 10 - Files from the interdisciplinary symposium on September 23/24, 1994 in Nuremberg).
  5. The Wagner Years in Musik der Zeit (Schott Music), accessed on December 8, 2014.
  6. See Laurence Dreyfus, Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, 2010, p. 110, ISBN 978-0-674-01881-5 .
  7. See Friedrich Dieckmann, Gespaltene Welt and a loving couple, Frankfurt / M. 1999, p. 287, ISBN 978-3-458-16974-1 .
  8. Cf. Constantin Floros, New Theses on Mahler's Tenth Symphony, in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, vol. 48/2, February 1993, pp. 73–80, here p. 75.
  9. Johannes Schild : Happy late bloom: Falstaff and Meistersinger juxtaposed, in: Arnold Jacobshagen (Ed.): Verdi and Wagner, cultures of opera . Boehlau, Vienna ed a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22249-9 , pp. 112-149, here: pp. 126ff.
  10. ^ Theodor W. Adorno, experiment on Wagner, Frankfurt / M. 1952, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 177, 1st edition 1974, p. 59.
  11. ^ Walter and Paula Rehberg: Johannes Brahms. Second edition, revised by Paula Rehberg, Zurich 1963. p. 167.
  12. Eduard Hanslick: The Mastersingers by Richard Wagner, in: Die moderne Oper, Berlin 1885, p. 302 f.
  13. ^ Alfred Lorenz: The musical structure of Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg". Berlin, 1931
  14. Eckhard Henscheid: Why Mrs. Griemhild Alberich granted favor out of wedlock. Berlin, 2001
  15. ^ Egon Voss: The conductors of the Bayreuth Festival, 1976, Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg; Documentation on Tannhäuser : p. 101.
  16. So justified in Egon Voss (ibid).
  17. ^ Matthias Eichele: Meistersinger - Comedy for spoken theater after the opera in three acts "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" by Richard Wagner . ePubli, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-7433-2 .
  18. ^ Egbert Tholl: History demands - Nuremberg wants to become European Capital of Culture in 2025. Selcuk Cara makes a contribution to this with his version of the "Meistersinger" . Review Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 1, 2020. Accessed July 23, 2020.