Mastersingers of Nuremberg, The, is a comic opera in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner to his own libretto (text). It was first performed in Munich, Germany, on June 21, 1868. Its title in German is Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
The action takes place in Nuremberg, Germany, in the mid-1500’s. Walther von Stolzing is a young knight who falls in love with Eva, the daughter of the local goldsmith. Walther learns that Eva is to be promised in marriage to the winner of a singing contest to be held the following day by the local guild of Mastersingers. He wants to join the guild and, after hearing an explanation of its strict rules, agrees to perform a “trial song.” As he sings, the town clerk, Beckmesser, angrily chalks up all the things he considers to be mistakes. Beckmesser, who also loves Eva, is all for dismissing Walther’s bid to enter the contest, but the cobbler, Hans Sachs, perceives the originality and merit of Walther’s song.
Eva, having fallen in love with Walther, goes to Hans Sachs’s shop to discuss the coming contest. Beckmesser arrives to serenade her, but as he sings, Sachs loudly hammers away at his shoes each time Beckmesser makes a mistake in his song. Walther and Eva try to elope, but Sachs manages to prevent them. Meanwhile, Beckmesser’s noisy “serenade” has led to complaints. A riot ensues, and Beckmesser gets a beating.
Sachs decides to do what he can to put things right. When Walther tells him about a dream he has had, Sachs writes down Walther’s words, allowing Walther to concentrate on the dream. Sachs recognizes the dream as material for a potential prize song. Beckmesser comes to see Sachs and finds Walther’s song. Sachs lets him take it for his own use. At the competition, Beckmesser tries to sing Walther’s words but makes a disastrous mess of things. Sachs brings forward Walther to show the assembled company how the words should be sung. He wins the prize and Eva’s hand in marriage. He then accepts membership of the guild of Mastersingers, as Sachs reminds him of the guild’s aim—to preserve the art of German song.
Wagner’s main theme in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg is that rigid and pointless rules cannot be allowed to stand in the way of true art or artistic creativity. Already Wagner had begun to suffer from harsh criticism of his groundbreaking work as a composer. He believed that the people who disapproved of his music did not understand it. The name Beckmesser has since come to be used for a stick-in-the-mud critic who attacks what he cannot readily comprehend.
