The musical director Pablo Heras-Casado once again challenges the public Royal Theater con ‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’ by Richard Wagner A production of more than five hours long which Heras-Casado has described as an “anecdotal” time and which will be offered in Madrid between April 24 and May 25.
“There is always a lot of talk about duration, for me it is something anecdotal. It is simply an opera, a drama, that needs all this time to be told.. Wagner returns to his roots in music, in German tradition. He talks about the importance of art, of music in society, of culture, from a very basic aspect,” described the director at the presentation of the opera this Wednesday, April 17.
Thus, Heras-Casado returns with his sixth interpretation of the German composer at the Real, after ‘The Flying Dutchman’ (2017); the Tetralogy ‘Rhinegold’ (2019), ‘The Valkyrie’ (2020), ‘Siegfried’ (2021) and ‘Twilight of the Gods’ (2022).
Due to the long duration of the opera, which returns to the Teatro Real after 23 years, The performances will begin at 6:00 p.m. and on Sunday, April 28, at 5:00 p.m.
While the artistic director of the Teatro Real, Joan Matabosch, has assured that it is a project that is “almost the most ambitious” that one can aspire to do in an opera house”, the stage director, Laurent Pelly, has described it as a “kind monster” that deals with the love of art, something that, he considers, is “extremely far” from what society is today.
“How to tell this story in today’s world, how do we tell the story of a world that is completely outdated, that belongs to another era. We talk about these teachers, singers, who very rigorously follow all their love for art, but that is extremely far from what society represents today,” Pelly assured.
230 ARTISTS
Along with the 19 soloists, the Main Choir of the Teatro Real will have 112 singers prepared by José Luis Basso; 4 actors and the Main Orchestra of the Teatro Real, with a staff of 95 musicians, so a total of 230 artists participate.
This cast will give life to the opera’s characters, led by Gerald Finley, who plays Hans Sachs; Leigh Melrose, who is Sixtus Beckmesser; Tomislav Muzek, Walther von Stolzing; Jongmin Park, Veit Pogner; Nicole Chevalier will play Eva; Sebastian Kohlhepp of David; and Anna Lapkovskaja of Magdalene.
In addition to being the stage director, Pelly is a costume designer for the production and has been in charge of placing the plot in a world “destroyed, unstable and symbolic” in which men, singers, survive thanks to their love of art and culture, something that Pelly has described as “comical.”
“The characters seek to cling to a whole series of rules and when it comes to the scenery, we can visualize a disaster. This makes it precisely comic, because we see these characters, these very serious master singers, in a completely destroyed scenery, which makes it grotesque and sublime at the same time. They are acting in this completely destroyed space and They need it to survive. Shows all the deep bond that I love“, has explained.
BECKMESSER’S HARP
‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’which will feature Beckmesser’s harp, on loan from the Bayreuth Festival for use in performances at the Royal Theatre, premiered at the Court Theater in Munich on June 21, 1868 and its plot takes place in a space and a very specific time: the city of Nuremberg, during a single day, the night and day of Saint John, in the 16th century, coinciding with the real life of the poet, musician and shoemaker Hans Sachs, who is the protagonist of the score .