Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

The young knight Walther von Stolzing loves Eva, who may marry only the winner of a competition among master singers. Since Walther does not know the strict rules, he fails at first. But the cobbler and poet Hans Sachs, the humanistic focal point of the city's reactionary society, recognizes Walther's talent for art and therefore attempts to resolve the conflict between tradition and innovation within the community's rigid rules. Against all odds and opposition, Walther ultimately wins the competition with Sachs's help, but he declines the title and leaves the field together with Eva.

In his third production for the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, director Daniel Kramer draws on the allegorical nature of Richard Wagner’s opera in an opulent staging to portray a society whose social order is not only regressive, but also ideologically charged and dangerous: here, rules become weapons, tradition leads to exclusion, and community to isolation.