Wagner in New Zealand - Memories of Roger Wilson

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
New Zealand International Festival of the Arts 1990
A personal memoir by Roger Wilson.


Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Walthers Preislied auf der Festwiese - Photograph: R.Wilson

There had never been anything in New Zealand to compare with the 1990 Festival production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Wellington. Festival Director, the late Christopher Doig, rightly regarded the whole project as one of his finest hours: he was the only person who would have dared dream of such a thing. After a successful career in Europe as a tenor Chris returned to New Zealand to become director of the Christchurch Arts Centre (also, alas, no more). In this position he showed such entrepreneurial and commercial flair that he was shoulder-tapped to head the New Zealand International Arts Festival. Shortly before this he had been engaged by Opera Australia to sing the rôle of David in their Meistersinger, a production created for Köln by Michael Hampe and given by the Bundesregierung to the Australian government for the Bicentenary. Hans Sachs was played by Donald McIntyre, (now Sir Donald), a New Zealand bass-baritone with a considerable reputation throughout the world, especially in Wagner: he had been Bayreuth’s first choice Wotan for some years. It’s now folklore that Chris and Don, the two New Zealanders, became great mates and went to the beach together. Chris was astonished when Don remarked, rather wistfully, that if he’d gone about things differently he might have had quite a good career. How could someone of his distinction think such a thing? He went on to say how he regretted never having had the chance to perform the sort of work he did best in his home country. It’s worth remembering that even many opera followers in New Zealand at that time had little notion of just how McIntyre rated internationally. Forthwith Doig resolved to remedy this state of affairs by bringing Die Meistersinger and its stellar Hans Sachs to New Zealand.

Chutzpah is hardly the word. ‘Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn!’ Sachs would have said. Doig carried all before him with single-mindedness, charm and, if need be, ruthlessness. Revealing a genius for fund-raising, he persuaded Petrocorp to underwrite the enterprise with a cool million. Opera Australia co-operated, the Bundesregierung and others came to the party. It was under way. Terence Dennis and I happened to be in Chris’s office in 1989 discussing other matters when he announced this to us in strictest confidence. I told him he was mad (‘Du spinnst’ were the words used). He got that well-known gleam in his eye: ‘It’s going to happen’ he stated. If Chris Doig said something would happen, it did. His policy on casting was that first choice was to be of singers who could not just pronounce German but speak it. The long Meister scene, essentially a committee meeting set to music, is very wordy and can be a bore if the actors cannot understand and react to every word. He said he wanted me to play either Kothner or Schwarz/Foltz along with der Nachtwächter. I walked on air all the way home, hoping it would be the former. Schwarz and Foltz are both bottom liners, rather low for me, and the Night Watchman, though a wonderful part, is very brief. But Kothner, a sort of head prefect and spokesman of the lesser Meister, in the Wagnerian Hoher Bass Fach, could have been written for me. (Incidentally, I thought the director’s conception of the Night Watchman one of very few miscalculations. Bruce Carson was made to dart about looking terrified of ghosts. Surely the whole point is that after the frenzied violence and confusion of the Prügelszene the Night Watchman strolls on insouciantly, announcing that it’s eleven o’clock and all is quiet, then blows the wrong note on his horn. Jokes are rare in Wagner, at least funny ones, but this one always cracks the audience up.) I was lucky and Fritz Kothner the Baker it was. The Meister Guild is a bit like Rotary in former times, one of each occupation. Indeed it’s a favourite Trivial Pursuits question among Wagnerites: a) name the twelve Meister, b) name their trades. A trickier question is to name the Meister who is sick and doesn’t appear at roll-call time. (It’s Vogel). Margaret Medlyn, who has become such an accomplished Wagnerian singer, made her Wagner début in the four-note part of Vogel’s apprentice who delivers his apology.

Kothner: Niklaus Vogel?……….schweigt?

Ein Lehrbube: Ist krank.

Kothner: Gut Bessrung dem Meister!

Alle Meister: Walt’s Gott!

Ein Lehrbube: Schön Dank!

A young Martin Snell, now a regular at Bayreuth, sang in the chorus.

Where could such a huge opera be staged? The State Opera House was too small, the St. James not yet renovated. The Michael Fowler Centre it had to be. The MFC was never intended to be a theatre; there was no proscenium, no orchestral pit, no suitable loading dock. Doig and his technicians were undeterred. Huge cranes were brought in so that the massive sets could be dropped in then raised out of sight. This included an ingenious lighting scheme whereby lights hung under the floor of the second act set when it was aloft lit the third act far below. The roof needed special strengthening. There were several near disasters: the second act set, a faithfully reproduced Nuremberg street scene, stuck fast about two metres above the stage for some days as the crew frantically worked to free it. The mighty diva Alessandra Marc and pianist Terence Dennis, rehearsing in between times for their recital on the MFC stage, had a row of half-timbered houses suspended over their heads. In a rehearsal one of the huge towers in the Festwiese scene toppled over, requiring more frantic repairs. One night the Tannoy fold-back system failed during the brawl scene, making it even more confused than usual. (I wonder if any production of Meistersinger anywhere in the world has ever had a note-perfect Prügelszene - I doubt it). But, for all that, the performances ran with astonishing smoothness and the stage manager assured me that there were far fewer glitches with the production than there had been in Australia.


The Act 2 set jammed. / The collapsed tower - Photographs: R.Wilson

In the absence of a proper pit the 90 players of the NZ Symphony Orchestra had to be placed on the floor in front of the stage, spread only three deep and thus over an extraordinarily wide space. How the conductor held it all together so well at such a distance was a minor miracle and there were a few acoustic issues for some sections of the audience, but from the stage it was fun to be able to see the players so clearly: how different from Bayreuth where the orchestra is invisible. Concert Master Isador Saslav who, to my surprise, told me he loved pit work above all else, had memorised his whole score and played over one shoulder so he could keep his eyes fixed on the stage the whole evening. In the veteran Heinz Wallberg we had the ideal conductor. At least one distinguished New Zealander was decidedly disgruntled at not getting the job, but if he had we’d never have got past the first act. Wallberg, with his breadth of practical experience, knew exactly how short time was, summed up immediately what could be fixed and what needn’t and just got on with his task with what he had. My clearest memory of him was in my solo in which Kothner reads out the rules of Meistergesang. Before the final vocal flourish of cascading triplets Wagner writes a long trill: every night Wallberg looked up, giggling, from the ‘pit’ and flapped his hands, as if drying nail polish, in case I’d forgotten it. Just once, to my shame, I somehow got a beat out and heard a great rumbling behind me, putting me instantly back on track: Don McIntyre had sung my part earlier in his career and remembered it well. I like to think no one in the audience noticed.


Kothner reads the rules: Roger Wilson, Donald McIntyre (Sachs), Don Edwards (kneeling - Lehrbube), Suzanne Blackburn (Lehrbube), Conal Coad (Pogner), Richard Green (Schwarz), Peter Russell (Nachtigall), Richard Weston (Foltz), Campbell Smith (obscured - Lehrbube), Margaret Medlyn (kneeling - Lehrbube), Nadia Bishara (Lehrbube), Derek Miller (Ortel), Edmund Bohan (Eisslinger), Peter Baillie (Moser) - Photograph: Woolf

Late summer is usually the time when Wellington’s notorious weather is at its most settled, something which contributes to the success of the International Festival, and 1990 was a glorious Indian summer. The cicadas were almost deafening. Every February-March their sound evokes for me memories of that wonderfully enjoyable Die Meistersinger season. More Doig networking, in this case through his brother who was then prominent in the Police Force, meant that we could use the Police College at Papakowhai to rehearse. For economic reasons there had been no intake of recruits that year so the whole complex was lying idle. The enormous gymnasium could accommodate the three Meistersinger sets side by side so we could rehearse entirely on set, an absolute boon for performers, and just move from one to the other for the different acts without dismantling and reassembling. A shuttle bus from the city was provided and during the inevitable long waits we had the run of the place, including the Olympic-sized swimming pool and the gruesome Police Museum. Or we could just sit outside in the sun. Never was there so pleasant a rehearsal period and seldom were all colleagues such congenial company.

It was a strong cast, New Zealanders wherever possible, with an enormous amount of collective experience and know-how, and many were fluent German speakers. Georg Völker, the sole German, and Donald McIntyre of course, but also Americans Bill Ingle and Kay Griffel, Christopher Dawe from Australia, Peter Baillie, Peter Russell, Richard Green and I had lived and worked for years in German-speaking countries; Edmund Bohan and Conal Coad were old campaigners on the international stage, Derek Miller had been a language teacher and the others could all cope well enough with the language. Andreas Homoki, the young German-Hungarian director who recreated the Hampe production so brilliantly, spoke perfect English, but if he hadn’t we could easily have rehearsed in German, extraordinary in New Zealand. Some wondered where twelve Lehrbuben, the Masters’ Apprentices, eight tenors, four mezzo sopranos, could be found. A few young baritones had to pretend, but they all flung themselves into the show with enthusiasm. There were also mutterings from some regular chorus singers when the Orpheus Choir was engaged en bloc to be the bulk of chorus but the decision was vindicated by the choral discipline displayed in their powerful singing of the mighty chorale. Most had not been on stage before and obviously relished letting their hair down, especially in the Prügelszene where the brawling became willing to the point of danger. Some street urchins were also needed. Would my children, then 8 and 10, be interested? Would they what!


Chorus and children on the Festwiese - Photo: Woolf / Roger Wilson with Charles (8) andMiranda (10) - Photo: R. Wilson

I think we all performed respectably enough, but two towered above the rest. McIntyre’s Hans Sachs was as good as you get. With his imposing, leonine presence, his tremendous vocal stamina, his worldly wisdom and understanding drawn from a lifetime’s experience in the theatre, this was an unsurpassable Sachs, dignified yet impassioned, ironic, irascible, benignly resigned. Fully matching him was Georg Völker’s volatile and pedantic Beckmesser. Those who’ve not been on an operatic stage might be surprised at how much talking goes on amongst the cast: even McIntyre, looking his most nobly high-minded, was not above drawing one’s attention to good-looking women in the audience at curtain-call time, but Völker’s seething Beckmesser was never out of character for a second. After one of his exchanges with Sachs he stormed past me, hissing ‘Du Arschloch’ under his breath. He waited in the wings, chain-smoking and swigging Coca Cola, but once on stage he was a Beckmesser Wagner might have dreamed of. Beckmesser is a ridiculous figure, but Völker, like all great comics, played it absolutely straight, attaining a very real pathos. After being humiliated for his disastrous prize song in the last scene he slunk off, dragging his lute on the ground, looking so broken and dejected that he brought tears to my eyes every evening. In this production Hans Sachs sportingly calls him back and all is forgiven. A kindly ending, but certainly not what the malicious Wagner intended. Someone commented to me afterwards on what a wonderful voice Beckmesser had. I could only say that I supposed he must have - it’s a cruelly demanding rôle technically - but that I’d never even noticed. This performance went far beyond mere singing, it was a complete fusion of drama and music, the very essence of what opera should be. These were two of the finest and most complete operatic performances I’ve ever seen, either as an audience member or a colleague, and it was an honour to be allowed to share the boards with such artists. I thought, as I sat in Kothner’s chair between them as they sparred, that this was as much as life could offer a performer and if I died in the night I would not have lived entirely in vain.


Conal Coad (Pogner), Donald McIntyre (Sachs) Richard Green (obscured –Schwarz), Georg Völker (Beckmesser), Suzanne Blackburn (Lehrbube), Richard Weston (Foltz),Roger Wilson (Kothner), Edmund Bohan (bottom right - Eisslinger), Nadia Bishara (top right - Lehrbube) - Photograph: The Dominion

When we lined up to go onstage for the Meister scene on opening night, having already had the thrill of hearing the NZSO striking up the famous prelude, I think even the most seasoned of us felt a sense of history in the making. I almost staggered onto the stage. Just as I reached the entrance the most almighty thump on my back all but knocked me over. It was the massive McIntyre paw delivering a message of good will and good luck. It was a full house and the excitement was intense. But the dress rehearsal two days before had had even more tension – of a good kind.
Often opera dress rehearsals are opened to school parties, the hope being to get the young hooked on something which might be new to them. Not everyone enjoys playing to these audiences but I love it. Young audiences are very honest, more like sports crowds. If they don’t like you they’ll boo and hiss, conversely they’ll cheer loudly if they do like you. If you get a good clap you know it’s been well earned. The doubters who said you couldn’t sell Wagner to New Zealanders – they were wrong, Chris Doig was right, as he always was – were aghast at the thought of school pupils being bored to restlessness by hours of Meistersinger. A compromise was reached: First Act only. In fact they were enthralled. Surtitles had been introduced to the country only a couple of years before and for the first time many of these children could follow every word. It can be disconcerting for a performer to adjust to hearing an audience roaring with laughter when a joke hasn’t yet been completed or else some seconds after the line has been sung. Die Meistersinger has been called the greatest comedy ever written (well, I’m not so sure about that!) but it isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. The Meister scene is very wordy and can pall, but the kids thought it was hilarious. They loved the verbal exchanges and roared at the scene where Walther’s first attempt at a Mastersong is ruthlessly demolished by the chalk-wielding Beckmesser in his Gemerk. At the end of the first act they flatly refused to go home. Goodness knows how the transport and feeding logistics were worked out in that pre-mobile phone time, but most stayed on to the end. I suspect the same audience would not have reacted so positively to, say, Madama Butterfly or La Traviata.

The other feature of the dress rehearsal was that we had a stand-in Walther von Stolzing. The American tenor William Ingle had arrived full of enthusiasm and unaware of pernicious jet-lag. He sang himself hoarse on his first day, immediately fell ill and never really recovered. Gamely he soldiered on through the rehearsals, either marking or sounding like a rusty gate. It was painful to hear such a nice, friendly man in such dire condition. It was decided that he shouldn’t attempt to sing the dress rehearsal but should save himself for the season proper. Was there a Heldentenor in the house? Well, there was one in the Festival Director’s office. Chris Doig ran over, still in his suit, bounded into what passed for the orchestral pit, rolled up his sleeves, opened his score and let rip. He was preparing the rôle at the time and knew it well, in fact I think he sang quite a lot of it from memory. I’d not heard Chris singing Wagner before and it was a revelation. Of course he was on a roll, as one is when saving the day, but never before, in my opinion, had he ever sung so brilliantly, nor would ever be quite as good again. Poor Bill, miming on stage to the Doig voice from the pit, could only rue his indisposition. In fact I don’t believe that even fully fit he would have been half as good. He wasn’t helped by an extraordinary costume which made him look like an aged rock star in a space-suit while the rest of us were clad as plausible 16th Century Nürnberg Bürger. Given the lead by Chris’s heroic singing of what is one of the most taxing Wagnerian tenor rôles, I think we all tried extra hard and the atmosphere was electric. The unlucky Bill Ingle limped through the season and we all wished we could have Chris Doig back. But Bill’s misfortune did have the effect of diverting attention from the tenor and the usual musical climax of the Preislied, so our superb Beckmesser rose to even greater prominence than usual.

One of Doig’s ideas was to have a celebrity as Festival Guest and in 1990 it was to be the legendary American soprano Beverly Sills. With a fortnight to go it was announced in a tiny newspaper paragraph that Miss Sills had had to cancel because of a family illness. Her replacement would be Wolfgang Wagner! When I next saw Chris I asked him how on earth he had engineered such a coup. ‘I rang the bugger up’ was his reply. No doubt Don McIntyre’s connection with Bayreuth management had helped too. So after the performance, there he was – and I have the photograph to prove it - like a reincarnation of his grandfather. He declared himself most impressed with our performance – well, he could hardly have said anything else in the circumstances. I don’t think I was the only one who found his powerful oberfränkisch accent hard to fathom, [...Nächste Seite]