Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Twenty-two Wagner Years Ago

I can't believe that WagnerOperas.com is twenty-two years old. Not to sound cliché about it, but it only seems like yesterday when I decided to put together a website after I heard the new Parsifal production from the stage of the Bayreuth Festival that was causing a furor. If you've been following my website, or if you are a lover of Wagner you will certainly remember the Christoph Schlingensief staging that transferred the setting of the opera to Africa and replaced the Grail with a decaying rabbit. There was no live video in those days, only audio and some published photographs. Not really being able to see what audiences were violently booing at the Green Hill made the production even more mysterious. In an outrageous kind of way, it was the kind of event that inspired one to go out and put a website together. 

 The production was so creative and outrageous at the same time, and director Schlingensief had taken such a plunge into an unknown world (he had never directed a Wagner opera before) that in my mind I must have said in my own small way I can also go to the edge and produce something that will either delight or upset people. Well, I'm sure my website did neither. The aim of the site was not to entertain, but to instruct, and to serve as a repository of all things Wagner. And, by the way, for those of you who remember, and it may not be many, WagnerOperas looked like this when it appeared on the Internet for the first time on 2004:
 I always had a fondness for that layout, if you want to know the truth. There was something pleasing to the layout. But as things changed in the online world, so did the site. Hopefully, its present look reflects the current visual tastes when it comes to an online presence. My further hope is that it is as pleasing to the eye as the original was.

Perhaps one day there will be a radical change to the look of WagnerOperas. And why not! The site should always reflect the current tastes of the opera world.

Monday, August 04, 2025

A New and Improved Wagnerians Page

 I spent this weekend updating the Wagnerians page of the Wagneroperas site. Click here to go to the page, and take a listen to the new added audio that now accompanies each of the artists featured.

Sunday, August 03, 2025

Bayreuth: The New Meistersinger Misses the Mark

 

I imagine that after a notorious Meistersinger production by Katharina Wagner that brought to mind the dark days of National Socialism; and the production that followed it, by Barrie Kosky, that explored the anti-Semitic undercurrents of the work, it was time to free this opera of its sociopolitical trappings and remind us all that it is a comedy. That is the impression that this new staging by Matthias Davids seems to want to put forth. However, if the aim was to remove the corset and let it all hang out, then that was partially achieved arguably by the last scene, which brought to mind a kind of Germanic hoedown, complete with bails of hay, lederhosen and an inflatable cow hovering overhead. Beckmesser unplugs the damn cow in retaliation for being ridiculed in front of the entire Nuremberg, but the cow gets inflated at the end to show that everything is fine in the dear old city.

But it is not! After Walther wins Eva in the song contest, they both storm out of the city hand in hand. Yes, they listened to Hans Sachs's speech about securing holy German art, but they're not buying it. They turn their backs on the old guard, and leave behind Sachs and Beckmesser upstage, both confused, asking each other what went wrong.

You can check out more pictures from the production by going to wagneroperas.com and checking out my 2025 Bayreuth page.

But what about the rest of the production? The first scene of Act I is dominated by a gigantic staircase that leads to a very tiny white church teetering at its zenith. The faithful descend after the service is over. All dressed in costumes that bring to mind the late 1800's. These elegant church goers find Walther wearing modern, contemporary clothing, but wait, is that a chain mail hoodie under his jacket to remind us that he is a knight? Throughout, the costumes seem to be divided in two worlds. David wears a t-shirt and oxblood color Doc Martens, but the Meistersingers dress in ceremonial robes of another time when they gather for a meeting. And what about that visually stunning staircase, the first visual treat we see when the curtain opens? It just goes away never to return. Why have it there in the first place?

The second scene of Act I presents the meeting place of the Meistersingers, and whadda ya know, it looks like a copy of the Festspielhaus auditorium, complete with wooden seats. Many patrons of the Bayreuth Festival complain about the un-cushioned seats, especially those that experience the Festspielhaus for the first time. There must be more complaints about the seats than about the heat in a theater that is not air conditioned. Was this the way to humor the audience? Was the audience at Bayreuth subconsciously supposed to feel good about the fact that the artists were just as uncomfortable, if not more, than they were. There must be a streak of Schadenfreude in Mr. Davids a mile long. 

 The best reaction to this production that I have heard since the premiere on July is that while Davids is busy at work trying to put the yucks back in Wagner's only comic opera, down in the hidden pit Daniele Gatti is trying to find the work's profundity. Perhaps this is the eternal question when it comes to staging  Meistersinger. Despite the humorous situations one might find in the narrative, the story does contain undercurrents of Antisemitism and the glorification of German art, which is called holy. Sachs demands that is be respected and defended, but Walther and Eva give their backs to it. 

Without a doubt, this is the most interesting part of this production, and it should not be. There is more to Meistersinger than just what Mr. Davids has been able to come up with. He's only skimmed the top of the surface, and perhaps has been advised not to seek further inner meaning -- the previous productions had done that already. It was time to allow hilarity to come back to the Green Hill. But in actuality there is very little that is genuinely comical here except for what Wagner has written. Davids just misses the mark.

A note about the cast: Michael Spyres, with his wonderful baritenor voice stole the show. A beautifully crafted performance that was vocally secured at every turn, especially in the difficult third act where he has to perform the "Prize song" three times. It was wonderful each time. Christina Nilsson proved to be a very pretty Eva with. secured top nd a sunny disposition. In Act III she is place inside what looks like a life-sized flower vase reminiscent of Ari Aster's film Midsommar. When I saw this, I asked myself "is this production going to go that way? Thankfully, it did not. George Zeppenfeld was George Zeppenfeld, a little too stern, too philosophical -- not my idea of a warm cobbler. Michael Nagy played Beckmesser, not as a caricature of a Jew, but as a lovesick guy who wants to court and win Eva with a heart-shaped neon musical instrument.

As the seasons come and go at Bayreuth, I am sure that Mr. Davids will change many things in this half-baked attempt to stage Meistersinger. It is not as easy one to pull off. My recommendation is to stay as close to Wagner's original intention, and you will have a successful revival of this dear, beloved work.