So the Met’s revival, the first for several years was a joyful occasion. Despite its length, it is often thought to be the most accessible of Wagner’s music dramas. The opera is rich with beautiful and lyrical melodies, comic touches, complex choral music, as well as contemplative stillness. Musically, the opera is more “traditional” than most of Wagner’s other works in that it has somewhat discrete solo arias, ensembles and choruses, although Wagner is careful here – as elsewhere – to provide continuous music with no opportunity for audience applause. The end of a long evening, as the massive chorus dressed as common folk of Nuremberg sings the praise of the poet and shoemaker Hans Sachs and what he represents for the community, is a deeply emotional and cathartic experience, with the audience led into the collective sense of the joy of human spirits. The supremacy and durability of art over politics and national borders is just as relevant today as it was in Wagner’s times. Hans Sachs’ final speech on the importance of preserving the “holy German art”, written by Wagner in the context of the German national unity movement of the 19th century, unwittingly and brilliantly foreshadows the European history of the subsequent centuries. It is his only “comedy”, meant to provide relief from his long travail on the Ring Cycle, an oeuvre on the power of art in human community, and while situated in a Southern German town in the 16th century, it nevertheless delivers a universal message of the importance of artistic and cultural freedom. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg runs approximately five hours and is the longest opera written by Wagner.
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