Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Bartók Béla National Concert Hall

The list is nearly complete: the repertoire of “Bayreuth by the Danube” – the Budapest Wagner Days festival held annually at the Palace of Arts – is expanding once again to include a new work in 2013, namely the German composer’s comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Ádám Fischer, who is fully conversant in Wagner’s music and highly regarded as a conductor of his works having appeared as a guest on several occasions in Bayreuth, brings a cast of world-renowned singers for this production at the Müpa. We have already had the chance to see and hear Eric F. Halfvarson as Gurnemanz in Parsifal and as Hagen in The Ring of the Nibelung cycle, while Klaus Florian Vogt and Annette Dasch are appearing for the first time at the Wagner Days.
Debuting here in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is Denmark’s Bo Skovhus, who originally studied to be both a doctor and a singer. His choice of career was eventually made easy by his hugely successful performance in the role of Don Giovanni. Since then, he has appeared in the world’s great opera houses and gained the title of Kammersinger from the Austrian state. We also welcome another new performer in the shape of James Rutherford, one of the outstanding representatives of the young generation of British opera singers.
The director, set designer and costume designer for this performance form a familiar team, as Michael Schulz, Dirk Becker and Renée Listerdal have already worked together on a production of the complete Ring tetralogy staged in Weimar. A DVD of this production was received enthusiastically by the public and critics alike.