Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

202 Joakim Tillman
tory phrases, the cerebrally forced use of symbolic leitmotifs, and a very
complicated orchestral texture?”
Lindgren claims in Om Wagnerismen that Wagner did not apply his
theories as consistently in Die Meistersinger as in Tristan, but “to some
small extent returned to a more traditional melodic style.” Therefore, if
Die Meistersinger were ever to gain any popularity, he argued, it would be
because of the passages that were not tendentiously Wagnerian, but melodically
striking in the traditional sense. Among these passages were the
overture, the chorale, Walther’s three songs, Sach’s Flieder monologue and
cobbling song, Beckmesser’s serenade, David’s song about St John, and
finally all the ensembles including the beautiful quintet and the exciting
finales.
The other negative critics shared Lindgren’s views in many respects.
Like him, the reviewer writing in Stockholms Dagblad (31/3 1887) was of the
opinion that Wagner had not applied his ideas as radically in Die Meistersinger
as in the Ring, but moderated them to a considerable extent. The
review continues with an account of Wagner’s ideas for opera reform, thus
providing the context for his evaluation of the work and the staging in the
following parts of the review (StD E 3/4 1887 and 6/4 1887). After criticising
the infinite melody, the extended recitatives, and the leitmotif technique he
continues:
“In the end, it would be surprising if people who are appreciative of the
flowing melody and lucid masterworks of Mozart and Weber, France and
Italy would exchange the rich musical beauty of their cantilena and their
lush ensembles for instrumental motifs and melodically meagre and
chopped up ‘speech-song’ phrases or ‘song-speech’ fragments.”
Thus, for this critic the Wagner question boiled down to the following:
“Should opera be a conglomerate of five arts and some professions (tailoring,
machinery and others), or should music be the main and vital principle
of opera? Wagnerians vote for the former, Mozarteans, Weberians,
Bizetians and others strictly keep to the latter.”
The StD critic obviously preferred the latter alternative, claiming that Die
Meistersinger attracted the most sympathy in passages that were based on
old-fashioned principles, in other words where Wagner had abandoned all
ideas of spoken melody, infinite melody and leitmotifs. Such passages were
to be found mainly in the third act, while the infinite melody occupied a
large space in the first two acts. Thus, the view expressed in StD was iden-