WETA’s Classical Matinee will present three operas of Richard Wagner during the month of November 2025: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Nov. 1), Parsifal (Nov. 8) and Lohengrin (Nov. 15). With this blog, we continue our series of conversations with Washington, DC-based opera scholar and conductor Saul Lilienstein, with an analysis of Die Meistersinger von Nϋrnburg, one of Wagner’s grandest operas and a story that examines tradition, innovation, artistic responsibility and music. We’ve included hyperlinks in the text below that link to audio excerpts that illustrate Mr. Lilienstein’s comments. This conversation also includes references to comments Mr. Lilienstein previously presented in his lecture series for Washington National Opera. You can see our previous opera conversations here.
Linda Carducci: Die Meistersinger is often described as Wagner’s only comedy. Although there are lighthearted and comic elements, I don’t think it can be characterized overall as a comedy.
Saul Lilienstein: Certainly, there are comedic elements, but the story is first and foremost about music. There are themes of tradition and innovation, musical conservatism and musical change, and reconciliation of youth and age, but the main subject matter is music itself. It’s not about German nationalism. And it’s unique among Wagner creations – there are no gods, no swan knight, no holy grail. Just real humans who lived in Nϋrnburg. The Polish pianist who became Poland’s Prime Minister, Ignacy Paderewski, said of Die Meistersinger, “This is the greatest work of genius ever achieved by an artist in any field of human endeavor.” And writer H.L. Mencken considered Die Meistersinger to contain all of Shakespeare combined. Now, these are extreme exaggerations, but they both understand the opera’s extraordinary and rich interweaving concepts.
We think of Wagner’s contemporaries as Verdi and Brahms, and there are lots of interesting things to compare among those three. But Wagner’s contemporaries were also the great writers of the 19th century: Melville, Flaubert, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Die Meistersinger is a perfect example of a great novel, but filled with beautiful music, and an extraordinary text. But the most important thing is that it’s beautiful music. Otherwise, it wouldn’t survive as an opera. I think Wagner put more into this opera than anything else he wrote.
LC: Where does Die Meistersinger fall chronologically in Wagner’s operatic canon?
SL: The opera premiered in 1868 right after Tristan und Isolde, the most revolutionary score Wagner wrote. Wagner used his innovative through-composing style in Die Meistersinger, but the score often sounds old — more like 1686. As we’ll see, that was purposeful, intended to serve the plot. Wagner said that he wanted to honestly try to cultivate modern forms, and he's going to do that!
LC: Let’s explore the way Wagner wove Baroque-era musical styles within a story about the tradition of creating and performing music. The story is based on a historical figure and historical guilds of 16th century craftsman (shoemakers, goldsmiths, bakers, for example) who are also amateur master singers and poets, known as Meistersingers, in Nϋrnburg, Germany. The Meistersingers created specific rules about creating and performing song, in order to preserve their traditions. This context is important to appreciate how Wagner crafted Die Meistersinger. But first, that joyous prelude!
SL: It’s a concert hall favorite for a good reason.
It’s a majestic and celebratory piece that opens with melodies that Wagner brings back at certain points of the opera, especially during the finale when the Meistersingers welcome a new voice – with a new way of crafting and performing poetry and music -- within their guild of musical tradition. It also includes the lyrical music of the Prize Song that the newcomer, Walther, performs to merit an invitation into the guild of Meistersingers. Hear Wagner's love of Baroque-style counterpoint right in this prelude -- one melody on top and another simultaneously underneath. In the midst is the sheer joy Wagner must have felt in composing it. There are so many examples in this opera in every scene. Creating, crafting and relating one musical thought to the next.
LC: Baroque counterpoint in the prelude leads to another traditional form of music as Act 1 starts. Tell us about that.
SL: It opens with a church service and a chorale about John the Baptist because it’s St. John’s Eve (or Midsummer), the night before the Feast of St. John the Baptist that marks the Saint’s birth. It’s no coincidence that the opera’s principal character is Hans (a form of John in German) Sachs. The chorale music sounds like a 17th century hymn, but it's new, composed by Wagner in the old style. In between each part of the church hymn, a delicate flirtation is going on — a solo clarinet that represents Eva, the daughter of the goldsmith Veit Pogner, and a solo cello for the yearning spirit of young man, a newcomer and impoverished nobleman named Walther von Stolzing.
The chorale continues behind these instruments.
There is one formal concept that helps us make sense of the piece from beginning to end. It’s called bar form, and it’s the structure of the Lutheran chorale: A-A-B. Bar form starts with a stanza, called a stollen. That’s the first “A”. And then the stollen repeats. That’s the second “A”. Those are followed by a concluding stanza, called an abgesang, that is longer than the stollen and has its own tune, and it frequently ends with a phrase from the first line. That’s the “B”. Bar form wasn't borrowed from the Italians — the chorale is German to the core. You can hear it used for 150 years from Martin Luther (A Mighty Fortress is Our God, for example) to J.S. Bach, who incorporated it in at least 400 compositions of his own. We’ll see how Wagner used bar form not only in this opening chorale but as a framing device to shape the entire opera.
LC: In Act 1, Veit Pogner, a Meistersinger and goldsmith, offers his daughter, Eva, as the bride to the winner of the Meistersingers’ singing contest. Only a Meistersinger, a singer and poet who has been honored as a keeper of the town’s old musical traditions, may enter the contest. Walther is new in town and knows nothing of the Meistersinger tradition. But he wants to court Eva, so sets out to learn how to become a Meistersinger so that he can win the contest.
SL: David, the apprentice to the town’s master cobbler and Meistersinger, Hans Sachs, cautions Walther that mastering the art of a Meistersinger is difficult and time-consuming; there are certain rules about melody and modal scales that must be observed. In a delightful recitation modeled on the oratorio style of Handel, the town baker Fritz Kothner has the honor of reciting the rules for constructing a proper song. Yes, the first section must consist of two stollen of the same melody with a rhyming end; an abgesang must follow with its own melody; there must be no plagiarism so no more than four notes in a row may be taken from anyone else’s music; and the singer must sit while singing. Meistersinger Beckmesser, who is a rival with Walther for Eva’s affections, will be the marker for Walther’s audition, noting all of Walther’s mistakes on a chalkboard.
Walther improvises a song about love and nature. "The spring cries out to the forest, and the forest responds with a chorus of jubilant voices!".
He takes the Meistersingers’ form, but stretches it with a boldness and strain of emotion that shocks them. They notice a dangerous Romantic streak to his music. That’s not what music is for, they say -- it’s to praise God! Everything Walther does runs counter to everything the Meistersingers believe, and Beckmesser loudly marks all of the newcomer’s mistakes.
Only one man -- the shoemaker and Meistersinger Hans Sachs -- listens earnestly to Walther’s attempt, and it burns in his ears and mind. Walther boldly continues singing, now standing on the chair. The Meistersingers shout him down with their objections but Walther outshouts them, although his audition has failed. Cacophony ensues with glorious and clamorous orchestration, and the Act climaxes in a wonderful commotion.
Everyone rushes off the stage. Only Hans Sachs remains, one poignant phrase from Walther’s tune still resounding in his mind. A solo bassoon plays while Sachs contemplates what is going on in his sweet town of Nϋrnburg.
LC: Wagner wrote the story and the libretto to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, but the principal character, Hans Sachs, was a historical figure from the 16th century, a noted Meistersinger and shoemaker.
In this opera, he is a widower and a trusted, wise and beloved member of the Nϋrnburg community. He’s an ardent supporter of the German tradition of master singers, yet he recognizes the innovations of Walther’s unsuccessful song. It is Sachs and his open mind to the evolving ideas of song and poetry that will serve as catalysts for the rest of the plot.
SL: Hans Sachs is the heart of the city. He takes the responsibility seriously of maintaining the beauty of the art of the city. We get a greater sense of Sachs in Act 2. Compared to the extroverted music of the first Act with its full-throttle orchestrations, the music in the beginning of Act 2 has been reduced to a chamber ensemble. That will continue as the inner landscape of one man's thoughts – Sachs’s -- will now transition to the intimate world shared by a man and a woman. Act 2 opens in the evening, as the guild apprentices sing joyfully about upcoming St. John’s Day. Hans Sachs cobbles shoes outside of his house, musing about Walther’s innovative song. Eva visits Hans alone, accompanied by harmonies and melodies that change from classical diatonic to weaving chromaticism — not the frenzied chromaticism of Tristan und Isolde, but of a seductive nature. Hans and Eva share a deep history that is tenderly revealed through their loving dialogue on a soft summer evening. Clarinet, oboe and bassoon are accompanied by gentle rocking rhythm in the strings.
We can feel the chemistry between them as she teases him about who her bridegroom may be, hinting that she would like him to be Sachs himself. It’s a tender scene that can break your heart. Eva persists, but Sachs demurs, saying he’s too old for her. He wells up at the memory of an earlier time. Art is all that matters, she says, so let the one who's mastered that be free to love. The orchestra garlands them in sweet, caressing music as they reminisce on all the years they've known each other, since he carried her in his arms. For Hans Sachs, this is getting too close for comfort. Sachs tells her that Walther failed the Meistersinger audition that morning and he is now intent on making shoes for Beckmesser, who hopes to wed Eva. Eva becomes annoyed and leaves in a huff, thinking that Sachs is just one more old, crusty Meistersinger.
Eva is not interested in Beckmesser, and despite her intimacy with Sachs, she is attracted to Walther. She convinces her maid, Magdalena, to disguise herself as Eva and stand in the window to fool Beckmesser when he arrives to serenade Eva. Walther and Eva greet each other romantically and make plans to elope, but Sachs overhears and knows that it would be a foolish mistake. So he foils Eva and Walther’s plans by casting a light into the street where the lovers stand. They hide in the shadows. Beckmesser appears, lute in hand, to serenade Eva (Magdalena in disguise). But Sachs decides to foil Beckmesser’s seduction by drowning him out with the boisterous clang of Sachs’s hammers on shoes. Eventually Sachs agrees to allow Beckmesser to continue his serenade on the condition that while Beckmesser sings, Sachs will mark each of Beckmesser’s faults — musically and poetically — with a hammer blow on the leather. So Beckmesser begins his song that would be a perfect example of a Lutheran bar form, but with some ridiculous coloratura.
Wagner must have liked it — later, he will give it the fullest treatment of any tune in the opera, other than the Prize Song. As Beckmesser sings, Sachs marks each mistake with his hammer. You might notice that this situation in Act 2 is a direct parallel to Beckmesser’s role in Act 1 when he disrupts Walther’s song by scraping away on the chalkboard. Now the neighborhood is awakened by the sounds of Sachs and Beckmesser, and they explode into the streets, loudly complaining. One way to create disorder in music but keep it as music is to use the strictest of form - the fugue. It may sound like it’s falling apart but it’s held together with a tight structure. Wagner uses a contrapuntal treatment for 16 different vocal lines, creating, with the orchestra, the structure of a full-fledged Baroque fugue while the bass section adds on sections of Beckmesser's song. Wagner, like Beethoven, enjoyed molding clay into extraordinary sculptures. It becomes a full-bloodied riot, with the petty grievances built up over the years between neighbors exploding into violence.
Sachs rescues Walther from the melee and pulls him into his home. The madness begins to cease, and the stage gradually clears as the night watchman appears, singing that all is well. Wagner didn't write the watchman melody — it's an old Nϋrnburg watchman song.
It was a good thought not to end the Act with the melee but to return to a peaceful summer evening. Everyone has left the stage except for the night watchman, and a solo bassoon plays Beckmesser's tune. The night watchman wonders what's going on in that sweet town of Nϋrnburg in the middle of Germany.
LC: Wagner gives us quite a lot of contrast in this Act 2. There’s the musical intimacy of Eva and Sachs that evolves to a raucous but humorous riot among the citizens of an otherwise peaceful city.
SL: Yes, and musically, too, Act 2 stands in contrast to Act 1. Yet structurally, there are parallels and similarities between the two. Each Act began with a chorale about St, John the Baptist. Each had a flirtation. The young man delivers a trial song in the first Act, but it failed; Beckmesser tried to sing one in the second Act. Same result. Each Act had an extensive finale with a singer and his critic, then confusion and disarray, and ending both times with a solo bassoon in the orchestra and solitary figure on the stage trying to figure out what just happened. And the timing of the Acts is almost identical. You might almost say we've just heard two stollen. If so, the final act – Act 3 – is to be considered as an abgesang -- much longer, starting with different music, with a conclusion that returns to the opening material. It most certainly does all of that! Was Wagner carefully considering intentionally framing the entire work as carefully as he's conceived every scene? Well, about 6-7 years of work went into this opera, time enough to make a really fine pair of shoes.
LC: That brings us to the third and final Act, which opens with a pensive orchestral prelude, almost as a signal to the theme of the Act: a reflection on tradition, philosophy, the importance of an artist’s responsibility to the community,
SL: Music can speak on a level beyond the capacity of words. The orchestral prelude in this Act is a portrait of Hans Sachs. Wagner wrote to his patron, King Ludwig of Bavaria about this opera: "Under the opera's quaint and populist humor, there is a profound melancholy, the cry of poetry in chains.”
As each string instrument enters, we'll hear some of the finest counterpoint since the time of J.S. Bach; warm contrapuntal weaving put to expressive and Romantic purposes. Wagner was also influenced by Beethoven's late quartets while most other musicians still ignored them. Then a hymn is sung by the winds, led by the French Horns. It continues in this state of sublime warmth.
That music will return later with words, and the text will be the poetry written by the historical Hans Sachs, welcoming Luther's Reformation.
In this Act, Hans Sachs will interact with each of the major characters and eventually alter the course of their lives. It is now St. John's Day — Hans Sachs's name day. First, Sachs’s apprentice, David, arrives to sing his last musical assignment and ask whether Sachs himself will enter the singing contest to have Eva for himself. Sachs remains noncommittal, but alone and in a reflective moment, Sachs grapples with the folly, madness and illusions of man. Why, he asks, must people throughout history torment each other and draw blood in foolish anger! Wagner creates an emotional portrait of a man struggling between moods of despair and optimism. First, the sorrowful music of the prelude to Act 3 returns here under Sachs's words of lamentation.
It's the same old madness, yet without which nothing whatever can happen! As he contemplates his beloved city of Nürnberg, the orchestra responds with dotted rhythms, buoyant and proud, and he sings with growing confidence. The instrumentation will expand in glorious colors, gradually adding woodwinds and brass as Sachs’s faith in the future returns.
Wagner, a master of musical transitions, now takes the rhythms and makes them disintegrate, facing the truths of the evening just past that had apprentices, men, women and children flailing at each other in a fit of madness. Sachs recovers, and in a striking modulation from E major to C major, he looks forward to the day ahead.
Hans Sachs will do what he can to put things right again, even if it takes a touch of madness to do that.
You might have noticed that Wagner introduced a hint of Walther’s Prize Song. Walther hasn’t fully composed it yet, but it’s on his mind as he enters and tells Sachs of a wonderful dream from the night before. Sachs says that dreams can be the truest source for beautiful music, and the poet's task is to interpret these deepest elements within us. Sachs, the wise and generous teacher, instructs Walther on the structure of the Meistersinger songs. Walther, his willing student, now composes two stollen while Sachs writes down the verses. Sachs later notes that Walther ended the second verse by moving into a different key, but the older man can learn from the younger one’s innovation. The men leave to prepare for the contest after Walther improvises an abgesang. While listening to what Walther has created, Hans Sachs realizes that his own personal hopes for love are about to vanish.
But two other characters are waiting in the wings, and their lives will also be affected before this scene is completed. First, Beckmesser: he stumbles into Sachs’s workshop and spots Walther’s verse on the table. But because it’s written in Sachs’s handwriting, Beckmesser erroneously believes that Sachs wrote it with the intention to enter the contest himself. Beckmesser angrily accuses Sachs of trickery, trying to get Eva for himself. Sachs corrects him and even offers the song to Beckmesser, who joyously rushes off to set the verse to his own melody and win the contest and Eva’s hand. Sachs has no worries about the results from that.
Now the fourth person to interact alone with Sachs that day arrives: Eva, accompanied by woodwinds and strings soft and voluptuous, the music made visible in the cobbler's joy in seeing her with unspoken desire in his heart. She complains that her shoes don’t fit properly, but Sachs knows this is a ruse – she is here to see Walther. He arrives, radiant as a knight in shining armor, and Eva is transfixed. Sachs pretends to cobble away at her shoes and speaks of the beautiful song he heard that day, hoping to hear another verse. Walther now sings more of his song. "Do you hear that, my child?" sings Sachs. "This is the song of a master!" But Eva sees Sachs in pain and rushes to him, sobbing. She still loves him and is conflicted because she also has grown to love Walther. But Sachs tears himself away in an act of renunciation and leaves her to rest on Walther. Eva grows up in a blinding flash of understanding and maturity. "Oh, Sachs, what would I be without your love!" She's overwhelmed by memory and desire. "Wouldn't I have remained always a child if you had not awakened me!"
Wagner gives her a new sensuality, melody, and chromatic harmonies. Can you hear a young Isolde filling the theater with her sexual awakening and her anguish?
Sachs hears it as well as we, but he knows about the tragedy of Tristan and Isolde and the sad role of King Marke. With the unresolved dissonances of the Tristan prelude sounding behind him, Sachs tells them that he doesn’t want to suffer the fate of King Marke.
What are the greatest vocal ensembles in opera? Here are some candidates: There is a trio in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte . . . the quartet in Verdi’s Rigoletto . . . the sextet in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor . . . and now, we have a quintet! (David and girlfriend, Magdalena, conveniently arrive on the scene.) What are they doing there? Let’s face it – Wagner wanted to write a quintet! Sachs announces the birth of a new song, Walther’s music. Eva, David and Magdalena serve as witnesses to this ritual. As in a dream, time is suspended. This composer, who has avoided anything larger than a duet in his last five operas, culminates his concept for an opera that ‘sounds so old – and yet is so new’ with this wonderful ensemble. A series of magical harmonic modulations leads the four higher voices into music of transcendent joy.
LC: As the plot continues in this Act 3, the community will bring a forceful presence. The evolution of the Meistersingers’ art, the wisdom and grace of the beloved Hans Sachs, and the promise of love between Eva and Walther, set to Wagner’s grand music, is overwhelmingly emotional.
SL: The scene changes, revealing an open meadow. In the distance, festive calls can be heard from the brass, and underneath that the first inkling of the Act 1 prelude can be heard as Wagner is about to bring the overall structure to its denouement. The stage is adorned with flowers, ribbons, banners and bunting as guests arrive and vendors offer food and the guilds of tailors and shoemakers and bakers entertain the growing crowd. Horns, drums and trumpets herald the occasion of a song contest. A boatload of girls from a nearby town disembark and all of the Nϋrnburg apprentices are delighted. Together they begin dancing to a rustic waltz tune. Is Wagner actually writing a waltz? It’s closer to the peasant dance called the Landler. But did you really expect him to finish the dance? Listen to how smoothly it transforms as the Meistersingers appear in full regalia.
Now, the Nϋrnburg Meistersingers arrive to the melody of the opening prelude, and with it, one more indication that Wagner’s abgesang to the entire opera has begun. It’s been over three hours since Wagner has given us a classical recapitulation of those opening sounds. Here comes some more of it now. When I was a college kid, we sang this one to the words, “back to the womb!”
This song contest, an annual event, is important because an artist’s sense of what is wonderful must be measured against what the people think is valid. Beckmesser makes a fool of himself performing his song and is ridiculed by the crowd. He blames Sachs for writing the lyrics. Sachs defends himself – the song is a good one, and here’s Walther to sing it correctly and prove it.
LC: And now Walther gets his big spotlight to show what he’s learned from the master.
SL: Walther begins the Prize Song, but Walther is young and impatient and will soon begin to improvise.
When he get to the abgesang the people respond with music that is an extended rhapsody on it.
We can almost see Wagner himself is in that crowd, smiling with them. And Eva is there greeting the young man she loves. Even the Meistersingers are won over and offer Walther membership in their guild.
LC: Isn’t this an allegory of the resistance and criticism Wagner received when he developed innovations to reform the standard opera of his day?
SL: Yes, it is, and Walther remembers how these same Meistersingers treated him the day before. He refuses to accept their invitation. Sachs steps forward and gives Walther one last lesson. The Meistersingers must be respected, he tells Walther, and even innovation can only exist within a sphere of tradition, a culture that will sustain the art. Wagner took heat for that section. To those who are mindful of modern German history, it appears to be an intrusion of nationalistic expression. But Wagner is pleading for the exact opposite of that. Sachs tells Walther he's being honored not because of his noble ancestry or prowess as a warrior, but only because of his artistry. Under Sachs's voice, the orchestra plays a recapitulation of the music from the prelude.
Sachs says we're simple and conservative folk, trying to preserve beautiful things in the midst of the evil around us. Let the Holy Roman Empire dissolve in a mist — there will still be our holy German art! Sachs’s message to Walther is also Wagner’s plea to us: Accept innovation yet also honor and respect artists from the great German tradition, such as Beethoven, Goethe, Bach and Schubert, a message that should continue into our own time.
All is reconciled in this joyful finale. Walther and Eva are joined by Sachs. The people of Nϋrnburg honor their beloved shoemaker and poet Sachs and he is overwhelmed with more love than he ever dreamed of from the new couple, from the other Meistersingers, and the entire community that he brought together. Their last words are in praise of him.
Haven't we heard layer upon layer of the human experience, revealed through this music drama! The sounds of this deep religious inheritance mingled with long songs, the sorrows and even the frivolity and foolishness of ordinary people. Wagner's deepest desire was to transform the individual and society — the reconciliation of all of these people is in this music and in the man they honor. In this opera, we discover the depths of wisdom and beauty that Wagner put there.
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