A Modern, Technically-endowed Triumph

'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'
in HD from New York on 17 December
impresses MARIA NOCKIN

Although the première of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg took place on 21 June 1868, he had begun work on it decades earlier. In 1845 the composer read Georg Gottfried Gervinus' History of German Poetry, which included works by the Nürnberg cobbler-poet Hans Sachs (1494-1576). In his four-volume autobiography, Mein Leben, published between 1870 and 1880, Wagner writes of having been intrigued by the institution of 'Der Merker' (the marker), who looked for mistakes in the songs. In the opera, his marker was to be the comic figure of Beckmesser ('Backknife')...