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Exhibition

Title page of the first edition of the piano and vocal score. Mainz, [1868]. The piano arrangement is by Karl Tausig, but incorporates Hans von Bülow’s transcription of the Vorspiel. This is a late issue from the original plates.

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

July 2018

DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG

First staged at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich, 21 June 1868.  Wagner had worked on the text from 1845 to 1867 and completed the score in 1867.  The work carries a dedication : Seiner Majestät dem König Ludwig II von Bayern in tiefster Ehrfurcht gewidmet.

Conductor : Hans von Bülow
Producer : Reinhard Hallwachs
Scenery : Heinrich Doll, Christian Jank, Angelo Quaglio
Costumes : Franz Seitz

Hans Sachs : Franz Betz
Veit Pogner : Kaspar Bausewein
Kunz Vogelgesang : Karl Samuel Heinrich
Konrad Nachtigal : Eduard Sigl
Sixtus Beckmesser : Gustav Hölzel
Fritz Kothner : Wilhelm Fischer
Walther von Stolzing : Franz Nachbaur
David : Max Schlosser
Eva : Mathilde Mallinger
Magdalene : Sophie Diez
Nachtwächter : Ferdinand Lang

1-3. Facsimile of the autograph fair copy of the libretto. B. Schott’s Söhne: Mainz, [1893].

1-3. Flyer for the German Opera Season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, May to June 1882. Die Meistersinger received its British premiere on 30 May.

1-3. English language libretto for the opera’s first UK performance, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Tuesday, 30 May 1882. Sung in the original language, the performance was conducted by Hans Richter.

(see below)

Advertised cast-list, cut from a programme, of the work’s first performance [in Italian] at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Saturday, 13 July 1889.  De Reszke and Mancinelli had travelled to Bayreuth the previous summer in preparation for this production, which (a few months later, when revived with the same performers) inspired the following comment from George Bernard Shaw:

“The other masterpiece of the Covent Garden repertory, Die Meistersinger, is the triumph of the season … Although the cuts necessary to fit the performance in between half-past seven and half-past twelve are mighty ones and millions, yet the work is such a wonder and a treasure of everything lovely and happy in music that it is impossible to grumble.  The chance of hearing such a Walther as Jean de Reszke with such a Sachs as Lassalle (they both surpass themselves in singing the two parts) ought to set on foot a Wagnerian pilgrimage to London from the ends of Europe.”
The World, 11 June 1890.

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