Mainly Opera and Ballet
A performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with an international cast was enough to attract me to the Teatro Real in Madrid. With Gerald Finley at the top of his game as a sympathetic Hans Sachs of huge gravitas, and a memorable Beckmesser in Leigh Melrose this was a moving performance. See my review …
In this revival of last year’s successful new Meistersinger director Barrie Kosky there seems to an excess of stage farce that rather weakens the overall effect. Too much mockery is expended on Beckmesser, rendering him not just a klutz but a pathetic creature shuffling over to Eva on his knees in Act 3 as his prize …
Although the three acts of Meistersinger – Wagner’s 1868 opera about the tussle between creativity and convention – are normally performed on a single evening, this was an exception. The opening night of Andrea Moses’ new production saw only the first two acts, with the third following next day. My review appeared in the Telegraph, …
This was Antonio Pappano’s first Meistersinger for the Royal Opera, and from the start of the overture to the final chords of Act III, more than five hours later, his peerless conducting drove Wagner’s comedy forward with huge effect. The chorus too was excellent, from the first four-part harmony in the church to their final embrace of Sachs …
This year the Bayreuth Festival produced five different operas, opening with a new production of Tannhäuser, followed by four revivals: Meistersinger, Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tristan, in that order. I went to the first four, which included Katarina Wagner’s grotesque Meistersinger for which spare tickets were selling at half price, and no wonder. With a weak …
Tickets for Bayreuth are hard to come by, so you know something’s wrong when people are disposing of Meistersinger at half price outside the theatre.
This new production of Meistersinger by David McVicar elicited thunderous applause at the end. And what an end it was, with Hans Sachs’s monologue being given its full force in a way I’ve not seen before. When Walther refuses the award of Mastership from Pogner, Gerald Finley as Sachs draws him aside to stage right, and his …
Five Wagner operas in six days … was quite a marathon, but well worth it, particularly for three of the productions.
…this year’s production of Meistersinger was apparently even more ludicrous that last year’s.
