Bayreuth Festival - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Published Friday 29 August 2008 at 16:55 by Penelope Turing

Katharina Wagner at the age of 30 is only a year or two younger than her father and uncle when they launched the reborn Bayreuth Festivals in 1951. An official announcement regarding the future of the direction of the festivals is thought to be likely after the official Bayreuth Foundation meets on September 1. Wolfgang Wagner will be 89 years of age and it is generally hoped that his two daughters, half-sisters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner will be appointed joint directors.

Katharina has produced a number of operas but her debut on the festival stage was this Meistersinger last year. Now it returns for more careful assessment. It would have been very likely that she should want to present this opera - produced by her father a number of times with great success - in an entirely new way. This she has, with a vengeance.

But the result is doubtful. She has turned the whole simple comedy upside down, including the characters. Most fundamental is the change in Hans Sachs. The wise, warm-hearted, humorous shoemaker has become a rather pitiable character who controls nothing. In the last act he entertains Walther and Eva in his room of white walls and steel furniture. This is not followed by festival meadows. In front of a glass wall, a number of figures with huge heads and masks representing Richard Wagner among many others catch Sachs and rope him to a chair before dancing round and mocking him.

There are many other bright ideas, but suffice it to say there is time for Katharina to achieve her father’s art and vision in production.

Sebastian Weigle conducted with a heavy hand. Franz Hawlata does not really have a Sachs voice. At this performance he seemed to be singing under difficulties and won great sympathy. Klaus Florian Vogt has a really beautiful voice for Walther von Stolzing. The others did their best.