Boost for Wagner

Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg is a devilishly difficult opera to perform well. At the very least, Composer Richard Wagner wrote requirements for a heldentenor of exceptional stamina, and power enough to vault the massed forces of the Wagnerian orchestra, and a baritone of considerable theatrical skill to probe the complex character of Cobbler Hans Sachs, one of grand opera's most intriguing heroes. It can also benefit greatly from a well-drilled chorus and properly poetic settings. Last week an audience at the Metropolitan Opera House saw a Meistersinger that had all of these attributes and more. It was one of the most distinguished new Met productions in recent years.

Although it came in the first week of the Met's 78th season, Meistersinger was not the opener. For that occasion the Met chose Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier, which is not a great opera--or even a very good one. Chenier, as General Manager Rudolf Bing candidly admitted, was the right length for an opener, and it had enough intermissions (three) to give first-nighters plenty of touring time in corridors, restaurant and lobbies. With Tenor Franco Corelli and Soprano Eileen Farrell in the lead roles, Chenier gave the audience an evening easy on the ears--and light on the emotions.

Caustic Caricature. Meistersinger was wholly different, from the very first notes of the theme of the mastersingers--the guild of vocalists in 16th century Nuernberg that the opera celebrates. Because Meistersinger, Wagner's only attempt at comedy, deals entirely with real people and with none of the composer's familiar Teutonic gods and goddesses, it demands more realistic stagecraft than most of the Wagnerian operas. Last week, the story of the knight Walther's love for the goldsmith's daughter Eva, and of how he won both her and the mastersingers' song contest with the aid of Sachs, was unfolded with a dramatic skill not always observed on the Met's stage.

Soprano Ingrid Bjoner was generally first rate as a shyly aggressive Eva. Bass Karl Doench was appropriately repellent as Beckmesser, the malevolent town clerk whom Wagner created as a caricature of one of his most caustic critics--Viennese Music Critic Eduard Hanslick. The chorus and extras were drilled with spectacular precision, creating at the end of Act II one of the most convincing pillow-throwing, hair-pulling riots a Met Meistersinger has ever seen.

Power to Spare. The real standouts, however, were Tenor Sandor Konya as Walther and Baritone Otto Wiener, who was making his Met debut in the role of Sachs. Hungarian-born Tenor Konya displayed a voice that had warmth, agility and power to spare; in his last act Prize Song he came as close as any man can to stopping a Wagnerian opera in its tracks. Baritone Wiener did not have a voice of flogging power, but he dominated the stage by sheer dramatic invention; he made Sachs a completely human figure.

In one of the famous recent productions of Die Meistersinger--the one mounted by Wieland Wagner in Bayreuth in 1956--the tendency was to reduce realistic sets to a minimum. Last week's resplendent production,* with sets and costumes by Designer Robert O'Hearn, took a different tack--and was far more successful. The soaring stone columns and arches of St. Catherine's Church in Act I looked enduringly solid--a far cry from the standard productions in which they tend to flap and billow like a clothesline of wet wash. The steeply gabled gingerbread houses of Nuernberg in Act II looked as though they had been rooted to the Met's stage for a hundred years. Visually and vocally, Die Meistersinger was as successful a new production as the Met had offered since its still outstanding Don Giovanni of 1957.

* Made possible by a $125,000 contribution from Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr.

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