Sachs, who listened to Walther with interest, says he, for one, found the melody new. If it didn’t follow their rules, then they should listen more carefully to the song, and try to follow its rules. Beckmesser calls this frivolous. Let Sachs sing to the common people in the marketplace; one becomes a Mastersinger through rules! Sachs begs the Marker’s indulgence to hear the song out, but Beckmesser wonders why the opinions and rules of all the Masters should bow before Sachs’s alone. God forbid going outside the rules! responds Sachs, slyly adding that another rule requires the Marker to be impartial toward singers. Is Beckmesser not competing in the contest as well? How could he judge a rival impartially? The Masters accuse Sachs of going too far in personal attacks, and Pogner pleads for calm. Beckmesser says Sachs should mind his own business, which is cobbling, and adds that the new pair of shoes he ordered is late. The Masters call for an end to the bickering, but Sachs orders Walther to sing, if only in defiance of the Marker!
Walther’s third stanza sings of the black ravens and crows that screeched at the sound of his voice, but a bright bird soared into the air, bidding him follow into the heavens where his love song would honor his lady. Hardly any of this can be heard. Beckmesser is splitting a gut counting errors of misplaced rhymes, obscure meanings, wrong breathings, and so on. The Masters laugh and jibe, Pogner sadly wonders if this whole idea is any good in the first place, while Sachs muses on the hopelessness of hearing this new voice, who is clearly a poet-hero. While the frenzy continues, Beckmesser calls for a vote. Most of the Masters vote to reject Walther. The apprentices gleefully begin to dismantle the Marker’s box and other furniture, while all exit in great confusion. Only Sachs remains there alone, a theme from Walther’s song nagging in his head.
Comment: The various comments of the Masters while Walther continues to sing form a stunning ensemble. It’s truly a sort of battle. Ensembles are rare enough in Wagner’s later works. The tonal balance here is remarkable, especially considering the exclusively male voices.
Act II
Setting: A street scene in Nuremberg. Pogner’s grand house is on the right, with a lime tree and a stone bench in front of it. Sachs’s more modest house, with its street-level storefront and workshop, is on the left. There is an elder tree in front of it. An alley runs between the two houses, winding up a hill. Many other gabled houses are visible.
Apprentices from the various stores and houses are closing shop, singing about Saint John’s Day as they work. David, closing the shutters of Sachs’s house, is dreaming about Mastersinger honors. The apprentices tease David for his airs. Magdalena appears with a basket of treats, trying to find out from David how Walther fared at the song trial. David tells her the knight failed entirely. This upsets Magdalena, who snatches the basket of treats away from David’s hand and runs into Pogner’s house, where she lives. This astounds David, who is perhaps wondering why Magdalena is showing such an interest in the knight.
The apprentices dance around David, singing of the love that’s everywhere in midsummer. An old man courts a young maid, while a young apprentice courts an old maid! David is about to attack the brats when Sachs appears, reproving him for not rising above the situation. Sachs sends his apprentice to bed without a singing lesson. They both withdraw into Sachs’s house.
Pogner and Eva come walking pensively up the alley. Pogner thinks about calling on Sachs. There’s a thing or two he’d like to discuss with the shoemaker. He debates with himself, deciding not to. And Eva—what does she have to say? Eva replies that an obedient child only speaks when spoken to, and Pogner praises her goodness, asking her to sit on the stone bench with him. She joins him nervously, seeing he is determined. What a beautiful evening! Isn’t Eva excited about the next day, when she will win a husband before the whole town? She asks if it must be a Mastersinger, and he reiterates that it must be—but one of her own choosing. Magdalena signals that dinner is almost ready. Eva asks if there is no guest for dinner, and it begins to dawn on Pogner that there is something between Eva and the knight who was suddenly inspired to try to become a Mastersinger. Pogner enters the house, while Magdalena and Eva exchange secrets at the doorway. Is all hope lost? Eva agrees to try to sound out Sachs, who is fond of her. Magdalena says she has another message for Eva—from Beckmesser. Eva has no interest in it. They enter the house.
Comment: This scene should let us know that Eva is slyer than she lets on. Note how she avoids answering her father, saying an obedient child doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Well, Pogner is in fact speaking to her, but she clearly has learned how to work him on matters other than matrimony. This is important, because if we think Eva is nothing but a bimbo, her intimate scenes with Sachs will make no sense.
Sachs and David emerge from the shop. Sachs tells David to set up his bench and worktable under the elder tree. David stands still after setting up, wondering what is happening on this strange night. Why is Lena acting funny? Why is the Master working late? Sachs sends him to bed.
Sachs arranges his tools on the table, but leans back pensively. The smell of the elder tree intoxicates him, inviting reflection. But what does a poor old shoemaker have to say? Better he should stretch leather and forget poetry!
He works, but stops after a while and gives himself up to reflection. It (the young knight’s song) was so new! He can’t quite hold on to it, but he can’t forget it either! Like birdsong, everyone would assume you were crazy if you tried to sing it yourself. It had all the urgency of spring. If it upset the Masters, it certainly pleased Hans Sachs!
Comment: This mini-monologue is Sachs in a nutshell—amused, philosophical, industrious, yet prone to reveries. His little rhymed couplet including his own name is typical of the historical Sachs, who was addicted to the habit of rhyming his own name in his ditties.
Eva timidly leaves her house and walks to Sachs’s worktable. He asks why the dear child is up so late. Is something wrong with her new shoes? No, answers Eva. She hasn’t worn those yet—they are being saved for the next day, when she will wear them as a bride. Sachs and Eva enter into a long and cagey conversation, each one trying to get information out of the other while covering their own intentions. Who will the groom be? Who knows that? Sachs lets slip that he is currently working on Beckmesser’s shoes, and Eva tells him what she thinks of the Marker by advising Sachs to use plenty of pitch on the soles—so Beckmesser will get stuck in one place and leave her alone! But there are so few bachelors available. Perhaps Eva should reconsider. But, she responds, would not a widower (meaning Sachs) do? He excuses himself from consideration. He’s too old. She does not let him off the hook, saying she always thought he liked her. He carried her as a child, but now she sees his affections were fickle. Sachs muses that he once had a wife and enough children. Eva says she thought Sachs might take her as both wife and child into his house. The closeness of the conversation addles them. Are they toying with each other? Sachs confesses he is confused. He has had a rough and disorienting day.
Eva uses Sachs’s confusion as her opportunity to speak up. What was rough about his day? Was it the singing school? Yes, answers Sachs. A young nobleman caused a big stir. He sang his chances away without any hope for a reprieve. Magdalena calls Eva from the window of Pogner’s house. No reprieve? presses Eva. Did he sing so badly that nothing could help him become a Master? My child, answers Sachs, there’s no hope for him, because a natural-born Master stands last among Masters. Magdalena calls again: Pogner is asking for Eva. But didn’t the knight win any friends among the Masters? Sachs would like to be his friend, but adds that the knight’s proud manner did not make it easy. He should fight his battles elsewhere, and let the quiet Nurembergers enjoy the fruits of their labor in peace! Eva leaps up at this comment. Fortune will smile upon the knight elsewhere, away from all these rotten little envious burghers and Master Hanses! She crosses the alley and meets Magdalena at her own door. Sachs nods his head. “Just as I thought,” he says to himself. “Now to find a way!”
Comment: What
, exactly, is Eva up to here? On the one hand, she is sorting out her several feelings, including a filial affection for Sachs. On the other hand, she is wisely hedging her bets. She really wants Walther, but could accept Sachs as a husband too. Anyone but Beckmesser!
The women exchange information by Pogner’s door. Magdalena tells Eva that Beckmesser will be coming by to serenade her. How will they get rid of him? Eva knows: Magdalena must disguise herself as Eva and stand at the window, while Eva will wait under the lime tree and hope to see Walther. Magdalena is hesitant at first. David might see her at the window and get jealous. On second thought—that’s not such a bad idea! Pogner calls from within. Eva sees Walther approaching and sends Magdalena inside.
Walther and Eva throw themselves into each other’s arms in a frenzy of passion. He bewails his failure at the song school. Now he can’t compete for her hand. He’s wrong, Eva tells him. He is her only choice. “You’re wrong,” counters Walther. Her father said it must be a Mastersinger, and everybody heard him say it. No there’s no going back, even if Pogner wanted to. He complains about the Masters and their dead rules, their moribund conventions. Walther imagines them staring covetously at Eva. Should he endure this from these Masters? Walther is Master in the freedom of his own home. The only hope is for Eva to follow him there!
The loud call of the Night Watchman’s horn is heard. Walther grabs the hilt of his sword, preparing for battle, but Eva advises calm and tells him to hide under the lime tree until the Watchman passes. Magdalena pulls Eva inside the house.
The Night Watchman comes ambling down the alley, singing out the hour of ten. Let the people guard their fires and lamps, that no accidents happen. Praise God the Lord! He goes off down the street singing.
Comment: The Night Watchman’s call and song slice through the action like a knife through butter. The horn call sounds “off-key” in the context of the score—an excellent touch instantly recognizable as “intrusion.”
Sachs, meanwhile, has been eavesdropping the whole time. An elopement! he exclaims, opening the top half of his shop door a bit. That can’t happen!
Walther paces nervously. Eva appears at the door in Magdalena’s dress, making Walther mistake her for “the old one.” Eva clarifies this by throwing herself back in his arms, and they aim for escape through the alley, where Walther assures her that his servant and horses are waiting. At just the right moment, Sachs opens his door and shines his lamp down the alley. “Alas! The shoemaker!” cries Eva, cowering in the shadows. Walther tries to head for the street, but Eva complains that it’s winding and unfamiliar to her, and the Night Watchman went that way. They can’t continue up the alley until the shoemaker leaves—it’s Sachs, and he knows Walther. Hans Sachs is my friend! protests Walther. Don’t believe it, cautions Eva, since he spoke only ill of you. Sachs too? wonders Walther, getting angry.
Beckmesser comes slinking up the alley, carrying a lute and looking around to avoid the Night Watchman. Walther is all for getting even with the Marker then and there, but Eva warns him against waking her father. Let Beckmesser sing his wretched song and leave, and then they can elope. Sachs, who has been struck with a good idea, sets up his worktable outside of his shop and settles down to work. Eva and Walther hide in the bushes at the base of the lime tree, and Beckmesser tunes his lute under Eva’s window.
Sachs starts hammering loudly at a pair of shoes and singing a full-voice verse of “Tra-la-las.” Beckmesser complains about the noise. Sachs sings a lusty song about how God took pity on Adam and Eve after He cast them out of the garden and told an angel to make them each a pair of shoes. Beckmesser complains. Walther asks why the song is about Eva, who responds that she’s heard the song before, and it’s not exactly about her, but surely Sachs is up to something. Beckmesser finally gets the attention of Sachs, who asks the Marker why he’s up so late. Not worrying about the shoes he’s working on now, he hopes. Beckmesser pleads for quiet, but Sachs returns to his song. “Eva, Eva, doesn’t it bother your conscience that angels like me must work late making shoes on account of human feet?” Walther doesn’t know if Sachs is toying with them or the Marker, and Eva explains the song is meant for all of them. It makes her sad, but Walther is lost in Eva. Beckmesser tells Sachs to keep quiet, but Sachs says he must sit outside in the fresh air and sing if he’s to stay awake and work this late, all to finish Herr Beckmesser’s shoes. Now hear the third verse! He invokes mother Eve to feel for the lot of a shoemaker, whose work is always trampled on. He signs off with a couplet: “Hans Sachs is a shoemaker, and a poet too!”
Eva’s window opens, and Beckmesser now worries that Eva will think Sachs’s vulgar song is his own serenade! How to make him stop? He asks Sachs, as an esteemed colleague and Mastersinger, to listen to his serenade song and tell him his frank opinion of it. Sachs declines such an honor, using Beckmesser’s insulting words from earlier in the day. What does he know of poetry? No, he must concentrate on the shoes. He sings again full throttle: “Eva, Eva, tra-la-la.” Beckmesser peevishly assigns Sachs’s attitude to the fact that he wasn’t made Marker himself, and swears he never will be. Sachs hammers away at the shoes. They finally reach a compromise. Beckmesser will sing his serenade and Sachs will mark errors with whacks of his hammer. Beckmesser poses in front of the window. Sachs pronounces, “Begin!”
Beckmesser sings two lines of his serenade, and Sachs hits the shoe he is making with his hammer, indicating an error. Beckmesser shivers, but continues. Another line, another whack. After the third, he asks Sachs what the problem is, and Sachs suggests a better way to sing the attempted line, so the tone, rhyme, and stresses will fit. Beckmesser mutters, but continues, getting out a line here and a line there in between Sachs’s hammer strokes. They bicker, Sachs clearly relishing this opportunity to mark the Marker. Beckmesser becomes more agitated as he realizes his maiden love (actually Magdalena in the window) is growing weary of this unserene serenade. After a second verse of singing and hammering, Sachs asks if Beckmesser has finished his song, because he has finished his shoes!
Comment: Beckmesser’s serenade is a great opportunity for some good comedy, requiring sound theatrical instinct and, above all, a sense of timing. The role of Beckmesser is traditionally taken by a veteran baritone—one whose voice itself may have seen better days, but whose lifetime of work can make his scenes in the opera a master class in stagecraft.
The actual words and music of his serenade are deliberately hard to follow. The words themselves are almost impossible to translate, although some very clever translations have been made that carry the spirit, if not the exact wording, of what is happening. Beckmesser uses the most tortured phrases to describe the most commonplace things, such as the sunrise, the beautiful blue day, and so on. The stresses fall in all the “wrong” places. The effect is roughly that of “My old KEN-TUCK-ee home in THE sun so BRIGHT basks!”
David, awakened by the noise, pokes his head out of his window and sees, to his consternation, Lena at the window being serenaded by Beckmesser. He vows to make the singer pay for this outrage, whoever he is. One by one the neighbors along the alley open their windows, peering out and asking what all the fuss is about, of course greatly adding to the confusion. Some appear on the street in their nightclothes and carrying lamps. David, now armed with a billyclub, jumps out of his window and starts whaling away at Beckmesser, despite Magdalena’s helpless protestations from the window. The neighbors on the street throw first insults and then punches at each other as years of smoldering resentments large and small erupt into a full-fledged riot. The young journeymen appear, all armed with clubs, and join in the brawl, which now seems to include the entire population of Nuremberg. The butchers are causing it! No, the tanners are to blame! Look at those stupid weavers! The Masters appear at the side alleys and scream for calm. The women yell for help and egg on the men from the upper windows, dousing everyone with buckets of water and God knows what. Pogner manages to pull Lena, who he thinks is Eva, away from the window.
W
hen the riot reaches its peak, Walther moves to cut his way through the crowd, with Eva on his arm. Sachs leaps out from his door and grabs Walther by the arm, simultaneously shoving Eva into the arms of Pogner, who has appeared at his door calling for Magdalena.
Comment: The riot scene is written with dozens of choral parts going in all directions—too many to make coherent sense, which must have been Wagner’s intention. Vocally, it’s almost a free-for-all; the unity comes through the orchestra, with fuguelike themes weaving through the score. It’s like the spirit or glowworm snaking through the people, which Sachs will speak of later when he is reflecting on the riot. The scene can be genuinely funny in the hands of a good director, with shutters and doors opening and closing and all manner of things flying out windows. The best productions let it go a little wild. If it’s too controlled or “conducted,” it tends to look like the local choral society having a genteel pillow fight after a rough rehearsal.
Suddenly, the Night Watchman’s horn cuts through the noise of the crowd. The people flee in panic and vanish in an instant, all doors and windows shutting. Sachs, who still holds Walther in one arm, kicks David into the shop and pulls Walther along inside. Beckmesser tries to gather himself, and limps away. The Night Watchman turns the corner and walks into a scene of perfect calm and peace. He sings that the hour of eleven has struck. Let the people take care that no ghost ensnare their soul, praise God the Lord. He walks off alone, bathed in peaceful moonlight.
Comment: We know what the horn call means when we hear it, since it’s already been “set up” for us. It’s a great way to get everybody back indoors and end the riot. Many see great significance in the Night Watchman, particularly as an emblem of the state, which bumbles along oblivious of the true activities of the people.
Wagner Without Fear Page 19