Wagner’s one comic opera was born under a lucky star.  Most of his operas had to wait many years for production, but the kindly care of Ludwig of Bavaria secured the performance of ‘Die Meistersinger’ a few months after the last note had been written.  Unlike many of his other masterpieces, too, ‘Die Meistersinger’ (1868) was a success from the first.  There were critics, it is true, who thought the opera ’a monstrous caterwauling,’ but it had not to wait long for general appreciation, and performances in Berlin, Vienna, and Dresden soon followed the initial one at Munich.

The scene of ‘Die Meistersinger’ is laid in sixteenth-century Nuremberg.  Walther von Stolzing, a young Franconian knight, loves Eva, the daughter of Pogner the goldsmith; but Pogner has made up his mind that Eva shall marry none but a Mastersinger, that is to say, a member of the guild devoted to the cultivation of music and poetry, for which the town was famous.  Eva, on the contrary, is determined to marry no one but Walther, and tells him so in a stolen interview after service in St Catherine’s Church.  It remains therefore for Walther to qualify as a master, and David, the apprentice of Hans Sachs the cobbler, the most popular man in Nuremberg, is bidden by his sweetheart Magdalena, Eva’s servant, to instruct the young knight in the hundred and one rules which beset the singer’s art.  The list of technicalities which David rattles off fills Walther with dismay, and he makes up his mind to trust to his native inspiration.  The Mastersingers now assemble, and Pogner announces that Eva’s hand is to be the prize of the singing contest next day.  Walther now steps forward as a candidate for admission to the guild.  First he must sing a trial song, and Beckmesser, the malicious little ape of a town-clerk, is appointed marker, to sit in a curtained box and note down upon a slate every violation of the rules of singing which may occur in the candidate’s song.  Walther sings from his heart of love and spring.  The untutored loveliness of his song fills the hide-bound Mastersingers with dismay, and Beckmesser’s slate is soon covered.  Walther, angry and defeated, rushes out in despair, and the assembly breaks up in confusion.  Only the genial Hans Sachs finds truth and beauty in the song, and cautions his colleagues against hasty judgment.

The scene of the second act is laid at a delightfully picturesque street-corner.  Sachs is musing before his shop-door when Eva comes to find out how Walther had fared before the Mastersingers.  Hans tells her of his discomfiture, and, by purposely belittling Walther’s claims to musicianship, discovers what he had before suspected, that she loves the young knight.  Sachs loves Eva himself, but finding out the state of her affections, nobly determines to help her to win the man of her heart.  Walther now comes to meet his love, and, full of resentment against the Masters, proposes an elopement.  Eva readily agrees, but Sachs, who has overheard them, frustrates