The Mastersingers of Madrid: David Evans enjoys some light-hearted seriousness in the Spanish capital

Review of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed Pelly, conducted Heras-Casado, Madrid, 2024.

November 2024, Volume 18, Number 3, 79–81.

The French director Laurent Pelly in his first Wagnerian production presents a decidedly Spanish offering (publicised as Los Maestros Cantores) featuring a somewhat distorted and off-kilter version of Nuremberg with flimsy but carefully crafted cardboard scenery and no straight lines. The stark and empty church interior of the first scene gives way to a fractured picture-frame around the Mastersingers as they first appear. The marker’s booth, an almost paper-thin construction resembling an old AA (Automobile Association) phone box, is brought on by Apprentices cavorting like mischievous schoolchildren, who later throw together the whole of the city of patched-up cardboard houses in Act II.