Reimagining Wagner’s ‘Meistersinger’ at Salzburg Festival - NYTimes.com

Mr. Herheim’s “Meistersinger” demonstrates something that should be obvious: an opera director can have a strong, personal take on a staple, as long as the concept seems to emanate from a sensitive reading of the work. Then the director can push an idea for all it’s worth and still bring audiences along.

The historical Sachs, like Wagner, was a passionate lover of books and stories. He would have written his poems and songs at a desk in his humble home. So Mr. Herheim uses that simple idea as a scenic concept and thematic metaphor for the whole production, which takes place, in an imaginative leap, on Sachs’s book-cluttered desk.








Reimagining Wagner’s ‘Meistersinger’ at Salzburg Festival - NYTimes.com