Prima le Parole: Michael Fuller discovers much to ponder in Stuttgart’s new ‘Meistersinger’

Review of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed Stöppler, conducted Meister, Stuttgart, 2026. 

July 2026, Volume 20, Number 2, 89–91.

How are we to approach Meistersinger? At one level, it is Wagner’s sunniest opera; at another, it is a piece weighed down by its nationalistic associations with the hideous excesses of the Third Reich. It might sometimes be tempting to focus simply on the glorious music this work sets before us. However, Elisabeth Stöppler’s new production for the Stuttgart State Opera constantly reminds us of the importance of what is being said. Words matter; and to emphasise this, single words, lyrics and poetic texts are frequently projected on a screen at the rear of the stage. By this means Stöppler probes the work gently in the first two acts, making the critique offered in the third all the more overwhelming.