Opera reviews: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Partenope

3 / 5 stars
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

WAGNER'S only comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a glorious five-hour ode in praise of art.

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The composer drew inspiration from the historical Mastersingers’ Guild of Nuremberg and the life of the 16th century cobbler, poet and mastersinger Hans Sachs. 

The story ranges through a day and a half in Nuremberg as the townsfolk prepare for the annual song competition by the Guild’s craftsmen. 

In his final production as Director of the Royal Opera House, Kasper Holten sees the guild of master singers rather more negatively as a gentlemen’s club “where powerful men go through antique rituals, dress up in symbolic costumes and offer women as prizes in competitions”.

To emphasise his point, the programme includes pictures of British ceremonies – from House of Lords ermine to the pomp of the Lord Mayor’s Show. 

Instead of setting the first Act in the communal space of the town’s church, the curtain rises to an Art Deco masonic hall. Goldsmith Veit Pogner’s daughter Eva (Rachel Willis-Sorensen) is the prize for the winner of the competition.

New applicant to the club Walther von Stolzing (Gwyn Hughes Jones) is no dashing knight in armour but a biker with greasy hair, tee shirt and tail coat. Eva is nevertheless smitten and engineers his winning the contest, with the help of Bryn Terfel’s cobbler poet Hans Sachs.

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Designer Mia Stensgaard’s oppressive set remains in place throughout, Act Two’s town square scene taking place in the slightly re-adjusted interior. The serenading of Eva by town clerk Sixtus Beckmesser and the brawl between Beckmesser and Sachs’s assistant David becomes a Midsummer’s Nightmare as masked celebrants of St John’s Night tumble on to the stage. 

For the competition Anja Vang Kragh has designed colourful and intentionally ridiculous ceremonial costumes. The staging may be muddled but the life-enhancing spirit of the music triumphs in the exhilarating performance by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Antonio Pappano. 

Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs is powerfully compelling in the final monologue on art. Gwyn Hughes Jones’s downbeat Walther has a fine heroic tenor. Rachel Willis-Sorensen is a lively and subversive Eva. 

Special mention for Johannes Martin Kranzle’s brilliantly insufferable Beckmesser. Tenor Allan Clayton is in fine voice as David and Stephen Milling is an impressive Pogner. 

Christopher Alden’s immaculate 2008 staging of Handel’s Partenope returns to the Coliseum for a brief run of five performances, so catch it while you can.

A rare comedy by  Handel, the story revolves around Queen Partenope, founder of Naples, and her vying admirers. The plot is complicated by the fact that one of them is a woman, Rosmira, disguised as a man, in pursuit of her fiancé Prince Arsace who has abandoned her for Partenope.

Opera goes underground in Buenos Aires

This gives Alden plenty of ambiguity to play with. He transfers the action to a weekend house party of surrealists in the 1920s, with Partenope as society hostess. 

Andrew Lieberman’s sets work beautifully in the context and Sarah Tynan is gorgeous as the flighty Partenope while Patricia Bardon’s luscious mezzo as Arsace is a treat. Outstanding too are mezzo Stephanie Windsor-Lewis as Rosmira, counter tenor James Laing as Armindo, Matthew Durkan as Ormonte and Rupert Charlesworth as Emilio.

The Orchestra under conductor Christian Curnyn brings out the glories of Handel’s sublime music.

VERDICT: 4/5

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Royal Opera Royal Opera House, London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7304 4000/roh.org.uk; £13-£270)

Handel’s Partenope English National OperaThe Coliseum, London WC2  (Tickets: 020 7845 9300/eno.org; £12-£125)

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