Richard Wagner
The Master Singers of Nuremberg
Act I
‘Nuremberg’
Thomas Shotter Boys (English, 1803-1874)
Artvee
Translated by Abigail Dyer © Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved.
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Contents
Act I, Scene 1
Diagonal cross-section of the interior of St Katherine's Church. The last few rows of pews are visible Upstage Right. Downstage is an open space for the choir. This will later be closed off by a black curtain.
In the last rows of the pews sit Eva and Magdalene. Walther von Stolzing stands some distance away, off to the side, leaning on a column, gazing at Eva. As the congregation sings, the two gesture silently to each other.
CONGREGATION 'Twas to you our Savior came
(Walther gestures that he has an urgent, burning question for Eva)
To be baptised in God's name,
(Eva tries to reply with gestures of her own but, embarrassed, casts her eyes down modestly instead)
Sanctify His saving death
(Walther gestures tenderly, then more urgently)
And give His commandment bless'd:
(Eva shyly turns away but then gives him a quick, soulful look)
That we through baptism rise
(Walther, charmed, gestures for an assurance that he may have hope)
Worthy of His sacrifice.
(Eva smiles, modestly casts her eyes down again)
Baptist wondrous!
(Walther gestures urgently, breaks off quickly, then resumes his urgent gesture, now somewhat softened, inviting Eva to talk with him)
Christ's forerunner!
Lead us graciously
Into Jordan's stream!
(The congregation rises and exits. Walther gazes in highest anticipation at Eva, who has also left her pew. With Magdalene following, she slowly approaches him. Walther and Eva walk slowly toward each other, pressing through the crowd of exiting churchgoers.)
WALTHER Oh, stay! One word! One moment, please!
EVA (quickly turning to Magdalene)
My kerchief! Oh, where could it be?
MAGDALENE Forgetful girl! I'll look for it!
(goes back to the pews)
WALTHER Forgive my breach of etiquette!
To get an answer, to ask my question
What rule would I not breach, I venture?
If blessing or if curse, if life it be, if death,
With one small word, let me know my fate:
Fair maiden, are--
MAGDALENE (comes back with the kerchief, curtsies to Walther)
'Twas on the bench.
EVA Oh no! My hair clasp!
MAGDALENE Did it fall out?
(goes back Up to search)
WALTHER Will life be mine or will death drawn out?
Will the reply to that which I dare ask
Bring what I long for or deepest pain?
Fair maiden, are--
MAGDALENE(comes back again, curtsies to Walther)
I have found your hair clasp.
Come, child, there's nothing more to find.
Oh no! I have left my book behind!
(returns Up)
WALTHER Speak just a word! Won't you pronounce
My verdict with a single sound?
Whisper to me just yea or nay:
Fair maiden, are you yet engaged?
MAGDALENE (comes back, curtsies to Walther)
Well, well! I thank you, and we are grateful, sir,
That little Eva you'd squire after church!
When will our hero honoured
Come call on Eva's father?
WALTHER (passionately) Would his house I'd not visited!
MAGDALENE What could be the meaning of this?
As soon as you came to us in Nuremberg
Did he not warmly welcome you, sir?
Open his kitchen, hearth and cellar, too?
That earns no thanks from you?
EVA Dear Lenchen, ah, that's not what he meant.
No, of me he's asking instead...
What are the words? I can't even say!
I dream, I think. Or am I awake?
He asks if I'm engaged?
MAGDALENE (shocked)
Pipe down! Mind what you say!
Now let us go home before
Someone walks through that door!
WALTHER No! Not till my fate I know!
EVA (to Magdalene)
They've gone. There's no one here.
MAGDALENE That's why we have to go!
Sir Walther, we'll meet elsewhere!
(David enters from the sacristy and gets busy closing the black curtains that separate the Downstage area from the nave.)
WALTHER No! First be clear!
EVA Be clear!
MAGDALENE(turns, sees David and stops; then, tenderly, to herself)
David? What? David came?
(turns back to Walther)
EVA (to Magdalene)
What, Lene, should I say?
MAGDALENE (absently, looking around for David)
Good sir, to the question that you pose
The answer isn't yes or no.
That Evchen is engaged, it's true--
EVA (spiritedly interrupting)
But no one's yet laid eyes upon the groom!
MAGDALENE None can know who the groom will be
Until tomorrow the men compete
And the Master Singer who wins the prize--
EVA(enthusiastically)
Is crowned with laurels by the bride!
WALTHER (astonished)
The Master Singer?
EVA (anxious)
Are you not one?
WALTHER A wooing song?
MAGDALENE By guildsmen judged.
WALTHER Who wins the prize?
MAGDALENE Whom the Masters vote on.
WALTHER The bride will choose?
EVA (forgetting herself)
You or else no one!
(Walther, very flustered, turns aside and paces up and down)
MAGDALENE (shocked)
What? Evchen! Evchen! Out of the question!
EVA Good Lene, let me return his affection!
MAGDALENE Did you not first meet him yesterday?
EVA Yes, but I already knew his face
For in a picture I've seen this knight.
Say, he looks a lot like David, right?
MAGDALENE (completely mystified)
Are you mad? Like David?
EVA In pictures revealed.
MAGDALENE Ah, King David, you mean, with the harp and long beard,
Pictured on the Masters' shield?
EVA No, him who stone struck Goliath down smartly,
With girded sword and slingshot in hand,
His head by flowing ringlets adorned:
Him, just as Master Dürer has drawn!
(David, who had exited, enters again with a ruler in his belt and a large piece of white chalk hanging from a string.)
MAGDALENE Oh, David! David!
DAVID I'm coming! Who calls?
MAGDALENE Oh, David! Look what a mess you caused!
(aside)
The rascal dear, does he not know?
(aloud)
Oh look, did he lock up so we can't go?
DAVID (tenderly)
You're locked in my heart!
MAGDALENE (aside)
I love the boy so!
(aloud)
My, my! What have we here for bad jokes?
DAVID I never! Bad jokes? No. Matters grave:
For the Masters I'm to set the stage.
MAGDALENE What, is there a contest?
DAVID A trial meet
Where prentices can win their freedom
But only if they don't break the rules of singing.
Masters they could become. We'll see.
MAGDALENE So then our young knight's plan will turn out fine.
Now, Evchen, come! We'll say goodbye.
WALTHER (turning quickly to the women)
To Master Pogner's please let me escort you.
MAGDALENE Best wait for him here. He'll soon arrive.
You'd win Evchen's hand in marriage? This is the time and place to try.
(two Apprentices enter carrying benches)
We mustn't linger!
WALTHER But how should I win her?
MAGDALENE With David's help you can
Prepare an audition.
David dear, listen, my heart's own delight,
Give counsel and be tutor to the knight.
I'll bring you a dish,
A sausage delish,
And more will be yours for the asking
If now the knight's named a Master!
(Magdalene presses Eva to leave)
EVA When will I see you?
WALTHER (very passionately)
This evening for sure!
What I won't venture!
How to express it?
Newborn, my heart,
New, my soul,
New as I set out
Toward this new goal.
Still sure of something,
Still knowing one thing:
Heart and soul promise
I'll win the contest!
No swords or armour
Clanking and clinking.
I'll have to win you
By Master Singing!
For you, fairest maid,
I'm a poet, bold and brave.
EVA (with great warmth)
Dear heart, now be brave
And may heaven keep you safe!
MAGDALENE Come on! Come on! It's getting late! It's getting late!
(Magdalene hurries Eva through the curtain to the exit.)
DAVID (sizing up Walther in astonishment)
A Master? At once? That's brave!
(Walther throws himself, disturbed and brooding, into the ecclesiastical armchair that two Apprentices have moved from the wall toward Center.)
Act I, Scene 2
Even more Apprentices have entered. They carry benches in and set them up, arranging everything for the meeting of the Master Singers.
SECOND APPRENTICE David! Come on!
FIRST APPRENTICE Get to work!
SECOND APPRENTICE Get the platform! Set it up!
DAVID Too late, since I've already done it!
Besides, I've got another assignment.
APPRENTICES A big shot he!
A mover-shaker!
(the above line in falsetto)
That fits an apprentice shoemaker!
("shoemaker" in falsetto)
His shoeing he does with a feather!
("feather" in falsetto)
A poet with soles and heels,
He writes his verses on rawhide leather.
("leather" in falsetto)
Let's tan it! See how that feels!
(with corresponding gestures)
(laughing, they carry on with their work)
DAVID(after he has observed the pensive knight for a while)
"Let's begin!"
WALTHER (bewildered)
How's that?
DAVID (even louder)
"Let's begin!" So says the scorer.
That means start singing!
Do you not know?
WALTHER Who is the scorer?
DAVID Do you not know?
Have you not heard how song contests go?
WALTHER Not ones that have guildsmen as jurors!
DAVID Are you a poet?
WALTHER How I wish!
DAVID Are you a singer?
WALTHER Am I this?
DAVID A scholar, surely, or student of art?
WALTHER Not at this point, but I could start!
DAVID Just like that you would become a Master?
WALTHER Sure! Why should that be such a disaster?
DAVID Oh, Lene! Lene!
WALTHER What's wrong with you?
DAVID Oh, Magdalene!
WALTHER What should I do?
DAVID (sits, posing)
Good sir, the mastery of song
In just one day cannot be won.
The greatest Master here in Nuremberg
Who teaches me, Hans Sachs,
For one whole year with him I've learned
Word and music's art and craft.
"Shoemakery" and "poetery,"
I study both with him, you see.
After I've beaten leather buttery
I study sounds and their correct utterance.
After the thread's waxed taut and stiff,
I study which words rhyme with which.
I tap the awl as
I think about
Where accents fall and
Which beats to count;
With shoe last in hand,
What consonants
Are hard or soft,
Long or else short,
What's couplets, unrhymed or elided,
What's paused and what's end-stopped,
What's iambs and what's not.
This all took great effort on my part.
And just what for it d'you think I got?
WALTHER At least a pair of comfy shoes?
DAVID They took me long enough to do!
A song must follow various rules.
He who takes good measure with his tools
Will stitch it right
With his thread drawn tight
And have well-fitted stanzas
To comfortably stand on.
Then he must sing an after-song
That's not too short and not too long
And that does not use a rhyme
That in the stanzas you find.
Who learns all these rules hard and fast
Still cannot be said to've mastered his craft.
WALTHER Good God! Am I to master shoes?
It is song craft I would rather choose.
DAVID Right! And I'm not even a "singer," not yet!
Who'd fathom how hard that is to get!
The Master tunes and song tones,
And all their many names,
The loud tunes and the soft ones,
Who can keep track of all them?
The short tones, long and very long tones,
The white paper, black inky tune,
The scarlet, blue and greenish tone,
The hawthorn, the straw and fennel tune,
The sweet and the tender, the rosy tone,
The long lost love and the forgotten tone,
The rosemary, wallflower tune,
The rainbow coloured, the nightingale tune,
The blue pewter note, the cinnamon tune,
Fresh orange tones and green linden tree tune,
The frog, the calf and the goldfinch tunes,
The long-departed gourmand tune,
The lark and the snail and the dog bark tones,
The lemon balm flower, the basil tune,
The lion pelt and pelican tune,
The waxed and shining thread tune!
WALTHER Good heavens! Too many tones to e'er croon!
DAVID Those are just the tone names.
Now learn to sing them
Just as the Masters have decreed.
Make sure each note is clearly ringing
However loud or soft you be.
Don't start too high, don't start too low
Or else your voice won't reach the notes.
Then control your breath. If air you lack
Your voice could tire or even crack.
Do not start any sung word with a moan.
After word endings, don't sigh or groan.
Don't alter the turns or colouratur'.
Embellish as you're taught but no more!
Don't mix up the words or skip a verse
Or you'll get lost and then, even worse,
Though well you've sung, you've run your luck out.
The scorer will say, "He struck out!"
I've worked so hard and tried my best
But never passed the singer's test.
I try and I try but all goes wrong.
Then Master sings me the leather strap song.
And when Mistress Lene does not come through,
I sing the nought but bread and water tune!
Your case in point I am
So drop this Master plan!
A singer and poet you must be
Before the Master goal you reach.
WALTHER Who is a poet?
APPRENTICES (as they work)
David! Come here!
DAVID (to the Apprentices)
Just a sec! Wait!
(turning quickly back to Walther)
Who poets are?
Once you're a singer in rank and prestige
And the Master tones you sing all correctly,
You must come up with rhymes and words
That fit just right into a verse
And to your chosen Master tune.
Do that and as poet you'll be known.
APPRENTICES Hey! David!
We'll to your Master tattle
If you don't stop your time-wasting chatter!
DAVID Oho! 'S that so? If I helped you not
You would set this whole thing the wrong way up!
WALTHER (holding him back)
One last hint: who as Master is known?
DAVID (quickly turning around)
That man, my good sir, is skilled like so:
(most profoundly)
A poet who both improvises
(very tenderly)
With words and rhyme schemes all of his own,
And with the tones new melodies devises,
That man as Master Singer is known.
WALTHER So all that's left is the Master Prize!
By this method
I'll be successful
And for each verse fitting notes devise.
DAVID (who has turned back to the Apprentices)
What have you done there?
So, I turn my back
And you set everything up out of whack!
(loudly and with bluster he barks work orders at the Apprentices)
Is today song school? What a mess.
We use the small stand for trials and tests!
(The Apprentices, who had been getting ready to set up a large platform, Center, now take it down at David's direction and set it aside. They set up a smaller platform instead. On it, they place a chair with a small desk in front of it and a large blackboard next to it, where the chalk on the string will be hung up. Black curtains are set up around the platform and can be drawn closed on all sides.)
APPRENTICES (as they work)
We all know that our David is really a whiz.
He'll reach for glory that he thinks is his.
At this test meet, watch him compete.
An excellent singer he thinks he is!
The beat rhymes he knows from memory.
The hunger song he sings all day!
To the seat pants kick song he knows every word.
He learned from his Master, good and hard.
(they make kicking gestures and laugh)
DAVID Go on and laugh! Not me today:
This man will try to make the grade.
He's not a student or a poet.
The singer's training, he'll skip over.
He is a noble
Who thinks it's no trouble
That he can come waltzing in here
And be Master this instant.
So give him a hand
And set up the stand.
(as the Apprentices finish setting up)
This here! That there! The chalkboard on the wall
So that the scorer can keep the score!
(turning back to Walther)
That's right, the scorer! Are you scared now?
How many hopefuls has he struck out!
Seven errors does he permit.
With chalk strikes the scorer keeps count.
Who more than seven errors commits
Is all washed up and has struck out!
So go to your fate:
The scorer waits!
(roughly slapping his hands together)
Good luck with Master Singing!
May you be crowned with the victory!
The flower garland of silk so fine,
Will it be awarded to this good knight?
APPRENTICES (having closed the curtains around the scorer's box, dance in a ring around Walther)
The flower garland of silk so fine,
Will it be awarded to this good knight?
(The Apprentices disperse when they see the sacristy open and Pogner and Beckmesser enter. The Apprentices move respectfully Upstage.)
Act I, Scene 3
The Apprentices' final set-up is like so: Stage Left, upholstered benches in an approximate half circle framing Center. At the end of the row of benches, Center, is the chalkboard as previously described. Stage Right is the high, ecclesiastical "singer's chair" that faces the benches. Upstage along the curtain is a long row of low benches for the Apprentices. Walther, annoyed by the Apprentices' mockery, has sat down on the furthest Downstage bench. Pogner and Beckmesser enter from the sacristy in conversation. The Apprentices hurriedly rise from their back benches. Only David remains at the sacristy entrance.
POGNER (to Beckmesser)
Take heart and all my planning trust in.
What I intend is good for you.
Tomorrow's singing match you must win.
Who could defeat your Master tunes?
BECKMESSER But you've not yet the point conceded
That I regard alarmedly:
If Evchen can choose who's defeated,
What good is all my mastery?
POGNER But say, I mean, why's that condition
The one that's foremost in your head?
If you can't sway the girl's opinion,
How could you woo her or her wed?
BECKMESSER Quite so! Indeed! But still, I pray you,
Speak to the girl on my behalf.
Say I've made proper suit and say, too,
You think Beckmesser's just the man.
POGNER I will oblige.
BECKMESSER (notices Walther, aside)
Still here, I see.
How to avert catastrophe?
WALTHER (who, as Pogner approaches, rises, goes to him and bows)
Permit me, Master!
POGNER What, Sir Walther?
At song school you did wait for me?
(Pogner and Walther exchange greetings)
BECKMESSER (still aside)
If women were wise! But big-talking braggarts
Mean more to them than all poetry.
WALTHER Here truly to the right place I've come.
What made me leave my land and home
And toward Nuremberg start?
It was my love of art.
Though last night I forgot to mention,
I'll now declare my true intention:
A Master Singer be, I will!
Admit me, Master, to the guild!
(Kunz Vogelgesang and Konrad Nachtigall enter)
POGNER (turning happily to the new arrivals)
Kunz Vogelgesang! Friend Nachtigall!
Come here this news unusual:
This noble knight, I know him well,
To the Master art has giv'n himself.
(introductions and greetings; other Masters enter)
BECKMESSER (to himself, coming back Downstage)
I'll give him no quarter! But if that should fail
I could win the girl if I serenade her!
To her alone I'll sing in the dark
And see if she'll take my song to heart.
(looking at Walther)
Who can he be?
POGNER (very warmly chatting with Walther)
How well I'm pleased!
It seems just like old times again!
BECKMESSER I don't like that man!
POGNER All that you want,
That's in my power, to you I grant.
BECKMESSER Why is he here? And why does he grin?
Uh-oh, Sixtus, watch out for him!
POGNER Gladly I helped you your goods to sell.
To the guild I'd welcome you, glad as well.
WALTHER My thanks, good Pogner.
You do me an honour!
May I hope to try for,
Today may I vie for,
The right to make the claim
To Master Singer be named?
BECKMESSER Aha! The lout! On his head is no dunce cap!
POGNER Sir Walther, this by our rules is governed.
But at this test meet I'll put you forth.
The Masters will lend me their ears, of course.
(the Masters have all assembled, Hans Sachs having entered last)
SACHS God bless you, Masters!
VOGELGESANG Are we all present?
BECKMESSER Hans Sachs has arrived!
NACHTIGALL Let's take attendance!
(Fritz Kothner takes out a list and stands apart from the group)
KOTHNER To today's test match and guild assemblage
We've asked the Masters, our guild members.
By name, I'll call
Them one and all.
Since I joined after all the others,
I call the roll: I'm here, Fritz Kothner.
Are you here, Veit Pogner?
POGNER Here at hand!
(sits)
KOTHNER Kuntz Vogelgesang?
VOGELGESANG Yes, I am!
(sits)
KOTHNER Herman Ortel?
ORTEL I'm where I ought!
(sits)
KOTHNER Balthazar Zorn?
ZORN I'm never out.
(sits)
KOTHNER Konrad Nachtigall?
NACHTIGALL Answers his call!
(sits)
KOTHNER Augustin Moser?
MOSER Accounted for.
(sits)
KOTHNER Niklaus Vogel? Well?
APPRENTICE (Alto) (stands up from the bench)
Out sick.
KOTHNER May he full recover!
MASTERS Amen!
(sits)
APPRENTICE (Alto) And quick!
KOTHNER Hans Sachs?
DAVID (rises and points to Sachs)
That's him, there!
SACHS (menacing David)
I'll tan your hide!
Forgive, Masters!
(sits)
Sachs has arrived!
KOTHNER Sixtus Beckmesser?
BECKMESSER Here, next to Sachs
(as he sits)
So I'll learn what rhymes with "thrive and wax!"
(Sachs laughs)
KOTHNER Ulrich Eisslinger?
EISSLINGER Here!
(sits)
KOTHNER Hans Foltz?
FOLTZ Right here!
(sits)
KOTHNER Hans Schwarz?
SCHWARZ The last, God knows.
(sits)
KOTHNER We've got a quorum plus some more.
Should we elect someone to keep score?
VOGELGESANG Let's wait one day more?
BECKMESSER If he insists.
He's but to ask, my job is his.
POGNER Come, come, you Masters, dispute no more!
For urgent business I'd like the floor.
(the Masters rise, nod to Kothner, then sit back down)
KOTHNER You have it, Master. Speak!
POGNER Now listen, my friends, to me!
Saint John the Baptist's festival
Is, as you know, tomorrow.
On meadows green and flower filled
To play and dance, we revellers
With merry hearts will all go,
Forgetting every sorrow,
To merry make each as he will.
We train in church where no one hears.
Saint John's Day we trade that in
And march ourselves to open fields,
Amid the noise of shouts and cheers
And merry bells and whistling,
To let the people listen
And sing our songs for laymen's ears.
The victors of our song contest
With prizes are rewarded.
Their entries lauded as the best
In music and in wording.
I am, thank God, a wealthy man.
We all contribute what we can.
I really had to think on
A fitting contribution
That puts me not to shame.
The prize I give, I'll name:
I've travelled all through German lands
And it has often vexed me
That men think townsfolk to a man
Are misers and unfriendly.
In castles as in hamlets small
Their harsh complaining really galled.
They said that haggling and gold
Made up a townsmen's soul.
That we alone in German lands
To art are still devoted,
Is something that they've never noted.
Think of the honour art can command
When we with courage dare
To treasure what's good and fair.
To art's great worth, its merit rare,
I want before all my witness to bear,
So hear, Masters, what gift
As the prize I wish to give!
Who's winner of the contest named,
Who by you Masters is acclaimed,
On John the Baptist's day,
Be he who e'er he may,
To him, I, a true art lover
From Nuremberg, Veit Pogner,
Along with my worldly goods, commend
Eva, my only child, to wed!
MASTERS (animatedly to each other)
Now that's a man! Now that's a vow!
That man will make all Nuremberg proud!
All men will praise you far and wide,
You worthy townsman, Pogner, Veit!
For all time!
VOGELGESANG To be a bachelor in his prime!
SACHS Or else to trade in his old wife!
APPRENTICES (merrily jumping up)
For all time!
Far and wide!
Pogner, Veit!
KOTHNER You bachelors,
Get down to work!
POGNER Now listen as I stipulate:
A lifeless trophy, I won't give.
The girl in judgement, too, will sit.
The Masters recommend the prize,
But, this is marriage, let's be wise,
Over the Masters' vote,
The bride a veto's got.
BECKMESSER (turning to Kothner)
But is that wise?
KOTHNER (aloud)
Do I surmise
You're giving our votes to the bride?
BECKMESSER That's dangerous!
KOTHNER She'll disagree!
And how then would the Masters' choice be free?
BECKMESSER Let her choose a man for her own
And leave the Master song contest alone!
POGNER No, no! But why? Just listen close!
Whom the Masters may choose by vote,
The girl's free to reject him
But no other man may she wed then.
The Master Singer with the prize,
To him alone may she be wife.
SACHS (rises)
My friend, perhaps you've taken this too far.
The flames inside a maiden's heart
Don't always glow with Master art.
Yet woman's taste, although unlearned,
Is, like the people's taste, of worth.
If you would aim to show the people
How highly art you prize,
And you want the girl to choose as she will,
But also as you decide,
You'll let the people judges be.
With the girl's choice they will surely agree.
MASTERS Oho! What's this? The people can vote?
Then Master art becomes a joke!
KOTHNER No, Sachs! No way! That doesn't make sense!
With Master rules you'd just dispense?
SACHS Now listen well! How you go on!
You know I know the rules of song.
That our guild they strictly observe
Is what I have long sought to preserve.
But once every year it's up to us to
Put all our guild rules up to the test.
With use, have they gone dull and lacklustre?
And of their strength, how much still is left?
And if they still apply,
You'll know it only by
Taking the word
Of those who never heard of scoreboards.
(the Apprentices jump up and rub their hands)
BECKMESSER Ha! That makes our students merry!
SACHS (continues earnestly)
But that's why you shouldn't worry.
For each year on Saint John's festival
We step down from our pedestal,
From lofty art in ivory towers,
And sing instead for the whole town!
To reach the folks that are laymen,
I think it just makes sense,
To ask of each composition,
"Does it please the audience?"
So art and town may thrive and wax,
Do things this way! So says Hans Sachs.
VOGELGESANG You mean that well!
KOTHNER But it's corrupt.
NACHTIGALL If laymen vote I'll just shut up.
KOTHNER Our art will be debased and shamed
If it seeks popular acclaim.
BECKMESSER No wonder he's proposing this:
He writes street songs that are pure kitsch.
POGNER Friend Sachs, my gift is new and strange.
This one thing more is too much change!
(turns to the Masters)
So I ask if the Masters permit
My proposal for the rules and gift.
(Masters rise and assent)
SACHS Then let's just give Eva veto power.
BECKMESSER That shoemaker turns my mood sour!
KOTHNER Who will our contestants be?
All bachelors fancy free?
BECKMESSER A widower, maybe?
Just ask Hans Sachs!
SACHS No, no, good Scorer.
A younger chap
Than I or you must the suitor be,
If Eve's to grant him victory.
BECKMESSER Younger than I?
The man's uncouth!
KOTHNER Who seeks a trial,
Let him step forth!
Who here will apply to sing and to wed?
POGNER One item on our agenda's left:
As Master, I present
And highly recommend
This young noble knight for admission.
He hopes that we'll elect him
A Master Singer here today.
My noble Stolzing, step this way!
(Walther steps forward and bows)
BECKMESSER (aside)
Just as I thought! Is that your plan, Veit?
(aloud)
It's far too late to grant him a trial!
MASTERS That's something else: a nobleman?
Does this bode well? What risks do we run?
We must take strongly into account
That Master Pogner for him vouched.
KOTHNER If we're to welcome the nobleman,
He must sing a trial and he must pass.
POGNER I'd like to see his wish fulfilled
But I abide by all the rules of our guild.
So question him, Masters.
KOTHNER Now would the knight kindly answer:
Was he born in wedlock and born free?
POGNER To ask him that, there's no need.
Since I myself substantiate
He's freeborn and legitimate:
von Stolzing, Walther, Franconian.
I certify that I know the man.
The last one of his noble line,
He left his land and home behind
And moved to Nuremberg where
He'll be a townsman here.
BECKMESSER That noble flower is a weed!
NACHTIGALL Friend Pogner's word's enough for me.
SACHS The long-standing Masters' guild rule is clear:
Both lord and farmer are welcome here.
We judge all by their art alone
When they take part in Master song.
KOTHNER Instead, then, I shall ask,
Which Master taught you your craft?
WALTHER There at the hearth in winter white,
The land snowed in on every side,
I read how spring so lovely laughed
And how she would awake at last,
In the ancestral book I grasped.
How often I did read that:
Herr Walther von der Vogelweid',
He was my Master of song craft.
SACHS The best of Masters!
BECKMESSER Long dead and gone!
How could he teach him all the rules of song?
KOTHNER But your vocal preparation
Was with which academician?
WALTHER When all the fields from frost were freed
And once again blew summer's breeze,
That which I'd studied winter-long
From my ancestral book of song,
I heard aloud on emerald lawns,
In woods around me ringing.
From forest birds on meadows green
I learned the art of singing.
BECKMESSER Oho! From titmice a-winging
He learned his Master Singing?
Who'd listen to this blithering bird?
VOGELGESANG Two brilliant stanzas from him we've heard.
BECKMESSER You praise him, Master Vogelgesang,
Because from fowl the man learned his songs?
KOTHNER I ask you, Masters, should I go on?
Or can this candidate be withdrawn?
SACHS In course we'll find out duly.
If he's an artist truly
Who treasures craft and art,
Who cares where he got his start?
KOTHNER (to Walther)
If you're prepared now to perform
A brand new work of Master song
All of your own invention,
We'll give you our attention.
WALTHER What winter nights,
What woodland sprites,
What book and meadow taught me,
What poets in their fancies' flights
With secret wisdom brought me,
When horses' hooves
To trumpets moved,
When folks danced rings
At gatherings,
I listened meditative
And thought that life's most worthy prize
Was in song to translate them
To my own words and music mine
Which to me flow together.
A Master song, if such you find,
Ye Masters, I present you.
BECKMESSER In all that blather, what'd he say?
VOGELGESANG Well, well! He's bold!
NACHTIGALL Interesting case!
KOTHNER If, Masters, you'll allow,
We'll call the scorer now.
(to Walther)
Would you, sir, choose a sacred trope?
WALTHER My sacred choice is:
"What is Love's Voice?"
Singing, I'll bring myself hope!
KOTHNER That trope is worldly. Even so,
Master Beckmesser, in you go!
(Beckmesser rises and walks as if reluctantly to the scorer's box)
BECKMESSER A bitter task, more so today!
My scoring might chalk up woe and pain.
(bows to Walther)
Learn, good sir, how
Sixtus Beckmesser scores you now:
Here in the box
He quietly carries out his job!
Seven errors you may commit.
He marks them with chalk over here.
More than seven errors he won't permit.
Then you're out on your noble ear.
(he sits in the scorer's box)
He'll listen close
But, so your courage won't be lost
Should him you see,
He'll leave you in peace
And shut himself away.
(He sticks his head out with a haughtily friendly nod and disappears behind the curtains that completely enclose the box.)
May God be with you today.
KOTHNER (signals the Apprentices, then, to Walther)
To make your song correct, be schooled
And guided by the codex of rules.
(the Apprentices have taken down from the wall the "Leges Tabulaturae" which they had hung up earlier, and give it to Kothner, who reads from it)
"Each of the parts of a Master song
Must represent all the proper forms
Of all applicable conventions.
This rule has no exceptions.
Every verse of song must have two stanzas
Whose melodies must have the same patterns.
A stanza's made of a group of lines
Whose verses at their ends must rhyme.
After these comes the after-song,
Also x-many verses long,
That has a distinctive melody
Which like the stanzas' tune must not be."
A composition that's made like so,
Each section in the Master ratio
And with a structure that is built
So no more than four syllables
With extant tunes will coincide,
That song would earn a Master's prize!
(gives the "Leges Tabulaturae" back to the Apprentices, who hang it back up on the wall)
Now sit down on the singer's chair!
WALTHER(with a shiver)
Here in the seat?
KOTHNER If you'd compete!
WALTHER (mounts the chair reluctantly, then, aside)
For you, beloved, I shall win!
KOTHNER (very loudly)
The singer sits.
BECKMESSER (invisible in his box, very harshly)
Let's begin!
WALTHER "Let's begin!"
Cried in the forest the spring,
So loud her cry would ring.
And as the sound receded,
As with an ocean wave,
From far off was repeated
A sound that closer came.
It echoed loud
The woods around,
This lovely chorus of voices.
Now loud and clear
And drawing near,
The voices swelled
Like happy bells
That ring to signal rejoicing!
The wood
Soon could
Give answer to the cry
That brought him back to life.
So he burst
Into a song of spring.
(From the scorer's box discouraging groans are heard, along with the loud noise of chalk striking the chalkboard. Walther has heard it, too. It interrupts him briefly but he carries on.)
But in a thorn bush prickly,
Consumed with jealous hate,
Hid winter himself quickly.
Well-armed, he lay in wait
And there among the plants
A wicked ambush planned,
Where he the singing joyful
Would ruin and would foil.
(he rises from the chair)
Still: Let's begin.
I heard the call in my breast
When I knew of love nothing yet.
I felt it and I shuddered.
It woke me out of my dream.
My heart swelled up as it fluttered
And burst from my breast, it seemed.
My blood then coursed
With mighty force
And throbbed with strange, new emotion.
On that warm night
With fearsome might
Swirled all around
A sighing sound
In wild, wondrous commotion.
My breast
Soon could
Give answer to the cry
That brought it back to life.
Let us sing
The noble song of love!
BECKMESSER (tearing open the curtains)
Have you quite finished?
WALTHER What's your complaint?
BECKMESSER On the chalkboard
(harshly)
I've run out of space!
(holds the out chalkboard, full of strike marks. The Masters burst out laughing.)
WALTHER Not yet. I've still my lady's praise
To sing with new melodic phrase.
BECKMESSER (leaving the scorer's box)
Sing where you like but you struck out here!
Look, Masters, at the chalkboard. It's clear.
In all my life I've heard no song
So brazen and so very wrong!
WALTHER But may he, Masters, show me the door?
Will I be silenced or sing more?
POGNER A word, Herr Scorer, you seem perturbed!
BECKMESSER That's natural after what we heard!
But that the knight has failed utterly
I first shall prove to this assembly,
Thought that's no easy task of mine:
How to start when he had no opening line?
Of rhymes wrong and groupings all misplaced
I shall utter no word.
Too short, too long, and with no line breaks:
Who one proper line from him heard?
Just "unclear meaning" I shall address.
Could what he said be more meaningless?
MASTERS It made no sense, I must agree.
A line break was nowhere to be seen!
Who knows what he means!
BECKMESSER And then the tune, a jumbled lampoon:
"Adventure" themes with "blue larkspur flower" tunes!
"High fir trees" with "young man" tones!
KOTHNER I understood not one of those.
BECKMESSER No ornaments, no trills and no turns,
And melody nowhere to be heard!
(the Masters are in a growing state of commotion)
ORTEL AND FOLTZ That's singing, you say?
MOSER AND NACHTIGALL No, it's a disgrace!
VOGELGESANG It was caterwauling!
ZORN With lyrics appalling!
KOTHNER He left the chair! Left his position!
BECKMESSER What proof do you require in addition?
Or's it clear he failed his audition?
(Sachs, who had been listening with growing solemnity to Walther from the beginning, steps forward.)
SACHS Wait, Masters! You speak too soon.
Not everyone agrees with you.
The knight's song left you baffled.
I found it new but not confused.
He left our road well-travelled
But still his tread was sure and true.
We can't by our rules measure
That which by our rules does not go.
Instead it would be better
To use it new rules to compose!
BECKMESSER Aha! Well, well! You heard his plot:
He'd throw open our doors to clods
Who'd come and go at their leisure
And sing what e'er they please to!
Sing in the streets or alleys somewhere!
Only those who follow rules may belong here.
SACHS Herr Scorer, why be a fanatic?
Why not remain composed?
Your judgement would be less erratic
If you had listened close.
Therefore I'd like to recommend
That we hear Sir Walther's song to the end.
BECKMESSER The Masters' Guild, the whole wide school,
By one Hans Sachs is overruled!
SACHS May God forbid that I should say
A thing that's not by our laws made plain!
Just look: Right here it's stated,
"The scorer shall have as his guide
That neither love nor hatred
May cloud the judgement he provides."
(Walther flares up)
Now that he means to woo a damsel,
How could the man pass up a chance to
Bring down his rival on the chair
And shame him before all those here?
NACHTIGALL Attacking him!
KOTHNER Ad hominem!
POGNER You Masters, don't be quarrelsome!
BECKMESSER Tosh! While our Master Sachs here mutters
About whose hand I will seek,
He should be minding his soles and uppers:
His new shoes pinch my feet!
E'er since my cobbler a poet became
It's ruined all of the shoes he's made.
They flop around!
The soles are unsound!
All of his rhymes and poems
I wish he'd leave at home.
Leave epics and plays and comedies, too.
Just come tomorrow with my new shoes!
SACHS (scratches behind his ear)
It's fitting that you chide
But is it, Masters, right?
For men who drive the donkey carts,
I pen poems on shoe soles,
But for our learned Herr Town Clerk,
I should pen nothing at all?
A verse that of you worthy'd be,
With all my poor gift for poetry,
Has not yet come to mind
But surely it I'll find
Once I the young knight's song have heard,
So let the knight sing on undisturbed!
(Walther, in a state of increasing turmoil, stands on the singer's chair looking down from there at the Masters)
BECKMESSER The subject is closed!
MASTERS Enough! It's closed!
SACHS (to Walther)
Sing, though the scorer has said no!
BECKMESSER What evidence more still need you,
Unless it's to deceive you?
(takes the chalkboard out of the scorer's box and holds it during the following, showing it around from one Master to the next as proof)
Every error small and big,
You see here on the chalkboard writ':
"Wrongly grouped," "poor enunciation!"
"Elisions" and "vices," too!
"Ambiguous," "rhymes in the wrong places,"
"Mixed up," "misplaced," the whole long group!
A "patchwork song" inserted most foully!
"Unclear meaning" is everywhere!
Here "obscure words," here "unrhymed," there "shouty"
And there he breathed wrong, took too much air!
Incomprehensible melodies
That pass at random through mixed-up keys!
If you don't shy from ugly tasks,
Masters, count every chalkboard hash!
He lost his chances before the eighth
But kept singing and set the record to date:
Well over fifty! It's not close!
Say, who here would him a Master vote?
MASTERS That's right! Just so! I quite agree!
The chevalier sang quite badly.
Though Sachs wants to give the man his vote,
Here he'll not sing another note!
Is every guild member not the author
Of whom the guild admits and when?
If we took each Tom, Dick and Walther,
What worth would the Masters have then?
Ha! See how the knight starts to fret!
Hans Sachs took him as a pet!
Annoying this is! Let's take a stand!
Come, Masters! Vote by a show of hands!
POGNER Oh dear, this is not going right
And things look bad for my young knight!
Vote now with the majority?
I can't, for that would trouble me.
Oh, how I wish he had been admitted!
A worthy son-in-law he'd make.
If I approve whoever wins this,
Will Eve his hand in marriage take?
What worries me the most?
How Eva will cast her vote!
WALTHER Out from the thorny scrub brush
An owl did speedily fly
And with his screeching woke up
A croaky raven choir.
The horde, nocturnal, vast,
Began to crow and rasp.
Their hollow voices cawed and cracked hoarse,
These magpies, crows and jackdaws!
Then arose a creature golden-winged,
A bird magnificent.
Its feathers fair and glossy
Bright on the breeze did glint.
Aloft in flight, he called me
To fly away with him.
My heart, aflame
With sweetest pain,
Grew wings when they were needed.
It took flight then
And boldly went
From the tomb-like town
To fly all around.
Then it its homeland it greeted.
Out there on bird song meadows bright
Where Master Walther gave me flight,
I'll sing out loud and clear
To praise my lady dear.
Up it climbs,
Though Master crows may it despise,
The proudest song of love.
Farewell, you Masters, I'm off!
SACHS (observes Walther, captivated)
Ha! He is bold!
Inspired, he glows!
(imploring)
Be quiet, Masters, and hear!
Lend the young knight your ear!
Herr Scorer, please, give us some peace!
Let others listen! Grant that at least!
In vain! In their vainglory
Not a man can hear his own song.
The knight sings and they ignore him
But he is bold and he sings on!
The song in his heart is right:
The man's a poet-knight!
If I, Hans Sachs, make verse and shoes,
Then he's a knight and a poet, too.
(The Apprentices have stood up from their bench, approached the scorer's box and formed a ring around it. They begin to dance.)
DAVID AND APPRENTICES Good luck with Master Singing!
May you win the garland of victory!
(they dance with increasing merriment in rings around the scorer's box)
The flowered garland of silk so fine,
Will it be awarded to this good knight?
BECKMESSER Now, Masters, show your hands!
(the Masters raise their hands)
MASTERS He struck out, lost his chance!
(Walther gets off the singer's chair with a proudly disdainful gesture and turns quickly to leave. Increasing confusion all around. Merry disorder from the Apprentices who are taking away the singer's chair and Masters' benches while the Masters are crowding around to look at the door. Sachs, alone Downstage, looks thoughtfully at the empty chair. As the Apprentices take it away, Sachs turns from it with a gesture of comic discouragement. )
Act I Curtain