Master piece

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is one of the most taxing of all operas to stage, with a large cast, gigantic proportions and requirements of stamina, both musically and emotionally, such as very few works make.

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is one of the most taxing of all operas to stage, with a large cast, gigantic proportions and requirements of stamina, both musically and emotionally, such as very few works make. Yet it has received two superb productions in the UK in the past 12 months, the second of which opened at Glyndebourne last Saturday, before an extraordinarily attentive and rapturous audience. It is primarily an all-round triumph, with a production which is as responsive to the many-sidedness of Wagner’s great drama as the musical side is alive to the amazing inventiveness of the score. Oddly enough, the Prelude to Act I was the least inspired part of the evening, a competent but unexceptional account of the done-to-death piece.