This new production of ‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’, Wagner’s glorious four-and-a-half-hour comic opera extolling the art of German vocal music, is the final one from The Royal Opera’s outgoing director of opera, Kasper Holten. With nothing to lose, one might expect either a full-on avant-garde wigout or ultra-traditional final roll of the dice, but the Danish director offers both and neither, eschewing the opera’s sixteenth-century world without replacing it with a coherent alternative.
Holten focuses his attention on the sexism of the plot from the beginning, with cross-dressed, moustachioed women joining the men as the excellent ROH chorus opens proceedings in a 1930s-style wooden-stepped guildhall, a gentlemen-only members’ club for mastersingers.
Meanwhile, Eva tries on her wedding dress, seated on a large trophy-shaped chair – she is to be the prize in a competition run by her father Pogner (a dignified performance from bass Stephen Milling). So far, so good. However, this attractive set by Mia Stensgaard does not change for the entirety of the opera; and while Anja Vang Kragh’s livery costumes for the mastersingers are sumptuous, their white tie and tails could work as an updated motif, except it makes no sense in act two with shoemaker Hans Sachs working at a formal dining table in his dinner suit. That aside, act three then gets a bit post-modern and we find the principals lounging around, apparently backstage while waiting to appear, distancing us from their characters.
The central role is shoemaker, poet and composer Sachs. Can he train ingénue singer Walther to create a master song worthy of winning his true-love Eva and confound the weasily, scheming Beckmesser in the process? Sachs is sung by Bryn Terfel, the bass-baritone effortlessly commanding the stage while booming over the orchestra, which, though playing superbly, more than once threatens to obliterate the principals, as conductor Antonio Pappano keeps up the volume. As Walther, Gwyn Hughes Jones rolls up in black jeans, T-shirt, ponytail and beard, more resembling a Hairy Biker than a noble knight. His lyric tenor, however, delivers the prize-winning song in a beautiful column of sound, overcoming apprentice David’s bamboozling explanation of the competition rules – a role sung sweetly by tenor Allan Clayton. The most engaging performance, though, is from baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle, who gives an amusing turn as the effete and confounded cad Beckmesser.
As Eva, Rachel Willis-Sørensen’s rich and dark soprano is a delight, with mezzo Hanna Hipp lending fine support as Magdalene. In keeping with the Sachs theme, the production is mostly cobblers, the elaborate staging overwhelms the comedy, but the cast offers true master singing.