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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
Terry Clarke This was a wild one. Katharina Wagner, the 29 year old beautiful blond daughter of Wolfgang by his second wife, under the influence of a number of German philosophers and other strange types, and having been given carte blanche to do what she liked, has come up with the weirdest, wackiest Meistersinger you can imagine. They played the music and sang the text exactly as written in the score but excised every one of Wagner's lengthy and precise stage directions and substituted so much different action that it was virtually unrecognisable. Stage business was constant and thus it was impossible to take in all the activity, so my memory only retains a small proportion of the innumerable liberties taken. Act One opened in a schoolroom, which was formal enough to be taken as a church and thus lull us into the false sense of security. A procession of apprentices, dressed as schoolchildren, carried before them with great reverence what appeared to be candles which they placed with great solemnity before an altar. This altar was, in fact, a work of art, not very distinguished, and the votive candles subsequently were used as table legs. There were more incomprehensible allusions to come. The wild action started when Walther (Klaus Florian Vogt) emerged from within a grand piano and, turning out to be a painter rather than a singer, demonstrated this by flailing around with a brush and a pot of whitewash that he daubed liberally all over a cello. Eva (Amanda Mace) and Magdalene (Carola Guber) were portrayed as silly 12 year olds, bouncing around with glee and rubbing their bottoms together. The masters were donnish, fusty, schoolmasters and Hans Sachs ( Fran z Hawlata) was a barefoot, chain-smoking, rebel writer. There was no visual reference to shoemaking throughout the opera. Walther's attempted prize song in the first act was dramatised as an artistic competition with Beckmesser (Michael Volle). Both had a large whiteboard and competed to complete a jigsaw depicting the old town of Nuremberg . The Marker got his correct whereas Walther's was upside down and he stormed off in a huff. Act Two appeared to be in the school cafeteria with Hans Sachs having a table and a typewriter. There was also an enormous, black hand with fingers pointed upwards that from time to time Walter would paint with his whitewash. Beckmesser came on wearing a black T-shirt that had written upon it ‘Becks is back'. The whole serenade scene was completely missing, with Eva and Walter canoodling on the black hand, whilst Magdalene slept with her head on a table. The final riot scene was truly that, with the white marble busts that stood at the side walls of the room coming to life and dancing around the stage together with all the cast and a few of the stage hands too – we recognised the assistant stage manager up there as well. Mind you they were still jigging around while the Night Watchman (Friedemann Rohlig) was singing that everything was quiet in town. The wildness redoubled in Act Three. The curtain opened to reveal twelve men in the background with enormous plastic heads some of which were recognisable as Wagner himself, Liszt, Beethoven, Goethe and many more that we failed to recognise. The main thrust of the act was that Eva and Magdalene were going to marry their artists and turn them into dull family men with themselves as typical hausfraus. So the quintet was played with them and their five children within picture frames dressed for church. The scene was further enlivened by one of the smaller children having to dash off to the toilet. The prize song was prepared in the guise of a painting and a self-portrait by Walter that Beckmesser found and stole away. The long musical interlude prior to the final scene was done by these enormous heads who cavorted around in strange and occasionally lewd fashion. When the girls came on we had three Miss Piggies who proceeded to strip to the waist, one of them burying Sach's head in her, admittedly, very agreeable bosom. Of course, he was tied up in a chair at this time. Towards the end of the interlude a trio of what appeared to be the executive team ie a blond girl (Katharina), the conductor in evening dress with baton and, presumably, the designer came on and applauded each of the prancing heads off the stage. These three then entered a large crate into which Sachs and David collected all the debris lying around the stage. They then set the contents of the crate on fire and warmed their hands at the flames as the Master's music finally faded away for the last scene. Now we come to the prize song. Beckmesser arrived dragging behind him another crate on wheels. He sang his song to the general approval of the 180 strong chorus who were ranged in everyday clothes on tiers at the back of the stage. When he came to the conclusion, getting more and more excited, the crate flew open to reveal a stark naked man and a blow up female sex toy. Beckmesser pulled a long snake from his fly and poked it into the sex toy that blew up. The stark naked man ran off with the remains. When Walther arrived for his song the chorus all tore their outer clothes off to reveal themselves dressed in matching evening clothes, although the women had their white bra' straps all visible for some reason. His song was greeted with less fervour than Beckmesser's, but he won the prize, which was a huge cheque presented by Pogner together with a couple of glamorous game show hostesses. Walther, however, rejected it and stormed off never to be seen again. The finale was Hans Sachs giving his paeon to German art standing mid-stage at attention, strongly lit from below and looking for all the world like Hitler at Nuremberg . In an inversion of the normal story, Beckmesser appeared to be the big winner and hero of the whole thing. In the middle of the third act a bat got into the auditorium and flew around for the remainder of the piece, this just added another layer of surrealism to this weird, wild, and perhaps batty experience. Like it or loath it, and the consensus was definitely against, the one thing you could not be was bored.
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