DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜ RNBERG Wagner Teatro Real
Midsummer s eve in Nuremberg and the reallife cobblerpoet Hans Sachs and the guild of mastersingers are pursuing their craft of poetry and music according to traditions and rules. A goldsmith s daughter, Eva, and a knight, Walther von Stolzing, fall in love, but Eva s father has promised her to the winner in the forthcoming song contest. Under the wise tuition of Sachs, can Walther learn the mastersinger s art in time to win Evas hand and see off a challenge from the foolish town clerk Beckmesser Richard Wagners only comic opera had a long gestation. Summer 1845: drawing on the History of German Literature as well as the biography of poet and shoemaker Hans Sachs, the composer sketches out ideas for a satirical counterpart to Tannhäuser. Autumn 1861: Wagner writes to his publisher that he intends to cheer himself up with something lighter and begins composing Die Meistersinger, which he would not complete until six years later. With a sense of selfderision with which he is
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