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By ANDREW POWELL MUNICH \u2014 Beckmesser blew his brains out at the end of Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/em> last night here in the Nationaltheater<\/a>. That was after first aiming his gun at the back of the head of Sachs, and after a graphically brutal beating by David and bat-wielding apprentices had left him in a wheelchair \u2014 a predicament from which he had miraculously recovered, back onto his feet, within the few hours separating Johannisnacht<\/em> and Johannisfest<\/em>. Sachs, for his part, never saw the gun; he was sitting moping because Stolzing had ignored his Verachtet mir die Meister nicht<\/em>, had declined to honor German art or the masters safeguarding it, and had simply walked out with Pogner\u2019s prized daughter.<\/p>\n Whether Beckmesser\u2019s character is of the suicidal type is a fair, though in context minor, question. Stage director David B\u00f6sch<\/a>\u2019s new production for Bavarian State Opera<\/a> offers an altogether transformed view of Wagner\u2019s erstwhile comedy, funded by the same hardworking Bavarian people who brought you the first, on June 21, 1868, when Hans von B\u00fclow<\/a> occupied GMD Kirill Petrenko<\/a>\u2019s podium.<\/p>\n Swiss-trained B\u00f6sch explores the role art can play in society by winding the clock in the opposite direction from the composer. Instead of reaching back three centuries to show the art-guild tradition at its liveliest, when Nuremberg prospered<\/a>, he forwards us to a faceless town that has seen better days, where the institution feted by Wagner is in yet more jeopardy than when the score was written and where the masters in their trades suffer the effects of debilitating, distant economic forces. Somewhat outside these problems is the presumably flush Stolzing, but even he cannot invigorate through his candidacy a guild whose masters find it easier to delude themselves than honestly confront demise. Sachs\u2019s Wahnmonolog<\/em> fits right in. Not much else does.<\/p>\n The idea of collective depression finds little use for such musical-dramatic particulars as the scent of the Flieder<\/em> (lilac) or the shade of the Linde<\/em> (basswood). B\u00f6sch has to invert the humor in, for instance, the Nachtw\u00e4chter\u2019s round and Sachs\u2019s gift to Beckmesser. He defies Wagner\u2019s time-of-day and lighting directives. Indeed, clashes with the composer create an uneasy mix of narrative, pomp, violence and slapstick (song-trial errors marked via shocks to the applicant in an electric chair; a town-clerk serenade from atop a scissor-lift, constantly raised and lowered by the cobbler).<\/p>\n But B\u00f6sch\u2019s own visual-stylistic trademarks are firmly in place, reminding us of his spacy, zoned-out previous work for this company: L\u2019elisir d\u2019amore<\/em> (2009), Mitridate, r\u00e8 di Ponto<\/em> (2011), and, his touching flower-power effort, La favola d\u2019Orfeo<\/em> (2014). Neatly arranged decay, locally lit props, black limbo backgrounds, a funky insouciance to the stage action: these are some.<\/p>\n The Bavarian State Opera Chorus<\/a> sang magnificently for this premiere, achieving levels of expressive detail and shading it reserves for its obsessive GMD; S\u00f6ren Eckhoff did the coaching. Sara Jakubiak<\/a> from Bay City, MI, made a welcome debut as Eva, acting well and producing girlish tones in mostly clear German. Benjamin Bruns<\/a> coped sweetly with the boisterous lyric challenges of David. Jonas Kaufmann<\/a> added the quality of heroic delivery to the youthful ardor and Lied skills evident in his Scottish Stolzing of long ago. Wolfgang Koch<\/a>, vocally opulent, looked sloppy as Sachs but conveyed enlightenment anyway. He projected his words impeccably and never forced for volume. Markus Eiche<\/a>\u2019s musically ideal Beckmesser deserved and received the loudest applause, after tough toiling in B\u00f6sch\u2019s action. Christof Fischesser<\/a> intoned nobly and richly through Pogner\u2019s wide vocal range, while the Nachtw\u00e4chter\u2019s chant seemed all too short as securely phrased by Tareq Nazmi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Petrenko drew playing of color and sparkle from his Bavarian State Orchestra<\/a>, favoring momentum (78\u2019 58\u2019 70\u2019 42\u2019) over reflection but pointing the rhythms with ceaseless energy and emphasis, much to the opera\u2019s advantage. Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/em> will be streamed<\/a> as video over the Internet at 5 p.m., Munich time, on July 31, 2016, under sponsorship from Linde<\/a>.<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 Wilfried H\u00f6sl<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: May 17, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n
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