Prize Offering: Nicholas Vazsonyi is impressed by a study considering the historical and cultural contexts of ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’

Review of Christopher Kimbell, Tradition, Community, and Nationhood in Richard Wagner’s ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ (Routledge, 2024).

March 2025, Volume 19, Number 1, 77–9.

 In many respects, this is the best book on Die Meistersinger I have had the pleasure of reading. The book’s chapters are structured around the opera’s main characters: Walther, Sachs, Beckmesser and Eva. Each character is a portal to a specific issue in the opera, as I will elaborate below. Before we get to these main chapters, however, Kimbell’s book begins with an expansive Introduction which outlines the opera’s two main topics – the aesthetics of creativity and nationalism – as well as providing a comprehensive overview of Meistersinger scholarship to date.