Master Meisfersinger

The New York City Opera's smart Director Laszlo Halasz was feeling pretty pleased with the repertory of his crack little company. Mozart was well taken care of, with bright, fast-paced productions of The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. So were the French, with Carmen and Faust, and the Italians, with Aida, La Boheme, Tosca, La Traviata. There was only one cloud in an otherwise sunny sky, but that one was a thunderhead: Wagner. Last week, with the help of an old Wagnerian, Halasz dissipated it.

The help came from 62-year-old Hungarian-born Baritone Friedrich Schorr, once the famed Wotan and Hans Sachs of the Metropolitan Opera. Ever since he retired from the Met in 1943, Schorr had been itching to "start a Wagnerian tradition right here." When Halasz gave him the chance last July to go to work on Die Meistersinger, Schorr jumped at it. He had to start from scratch with the almost all-American cast, but that was exactly what he wanted to do.

For the first three days Schorr, now head of the vocal department of the Manhattan School of Music, "just talked" to his City Opera "kids." He saw no reason to do Meistersinger "the way we did it 30 years ago." But he wanted them to understand the true (non-Wagnerian) history of the 16th Century German guilds so they would know what they were singing about. Then he went to work on German diction. When he got down to the fine points of acting, his final advice was simple: "Be yourself. Act as naturally as possible and you are the best actor in the world."

At dress rehearsal, the veteran baritone brooded and flapped over his flock like a mother hen. When 34-year-old Baritone James (Figaro, Don Giovanni) Pease showed up in his Hans Sachs costumes "looking like a sick Henry VIII," Schorr dug out his own 25-year-old costumes, insisted Pease wear them instead.

Last week, when a City Center audience finally heard the result, they brought the house down. Everything clicked: orchestra (under Joseph Rosenstock), scenery (by H. A. Condell) and singers. James Pease made the role of Sachs, the cobbler-poet, glow with gentle wisdom. The little second-act rage of the blonde Eva (Soprano Frances Yeend) was as charmingly impetuous as it should be. Her Walther (young German Heldentenor Hans Beirer) was impassioned, and in notable voice, in the Prize Song. And for once there was a Beckmesser (Baritone Emile Renan) who kept his comedy on the right side of slapstick. Altogether, it was a Meistersinger done with tender wit and the kind of freshness and spirit that brings cheering fans to their feet. Glowed ecstatic Friedrich Schorr, embracing--and being embraced--backstage when the final curtain was down: "Magnificent. I am so proud of my kids."

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