#meistersinger

this is a half-baked idea. proceed with caution lol

- why is eva a cardboard cutout? becase this girl has NO PERSONALITY and everyone needs to know

- she is, of course, still sung. the soprano sings her from offstage. 

- everyone needs to act extremely normal about this. business as usual (basically i want the outrageously traditional met meisteringer production but with this modification)

- partially illustrates how incredibly ridiculous it is of stolzing to want to marry this girl after having known her for one...maybe two?? days 

- he can impossibly know more about her than he could know about a cardboard cutout. so just let her be one lol

- also emphasises what a weirdfuck idea it is to have a singing contest to win the hand of a girl. like...this girl is not a trophy to be won. she shouldn’t be an object and this whole contest is weird and should feel weird to the rational audience member  

- and. beckmesser (this has to be done seriously, ok) deciding to enter the contest not because he’s into *cough* stealing german girls *cough* but because he is, above all other things, very much isolated in the mastersingers’ social dynamic and he is desperately looking for something, anything, that can help him and he will chase after a status symbol in hopes of attaining it (bc tbh. eva is being made a bit of a status symbol by marrying her off in this contest) 

- does that make beckmesser greedy? no. it makes him sad and a lil desperate and actually a little relatable if done right, hopefully, bc i think many people may know the feeling of chasing a material object they hope will make them less excluded. a little like when you were in school and everyone had a Cool Thing New Thing and you didn’t and got shut out of conversations, so you wanted a Cool Thing too. 

- and it kinda evades the ‘jews are money-grabbing’ stereotype. it is a cardboard cutout. it is worthless. it’s just that the entirety of nuremberg has decided that this is person-like without this being objective or provable, or true literally anywhere else. and he’s pinning his dreams of being liked on...a cardboard cutout. ouch. 

(- beckmesser doesn’t need a cardboard cutout, he needs friends. that should become obvious.)

(- sachs is the only problem in this. he actually does know her well. granted, his attachment to her is kind of weird. but he does know her. We Shall See about sachs. although. would also be fascinating if he were the only one who KNEW how much of a cardboard cutout she is, recognised this, and agonised about the state of the world over it.)

onto the lighter ideas:

- just. imagine act 2 where walther and eva are running away but what ACTUALLY happens is walther is dragging a cardboard cutout around the stage and hiding the cutout in the bushes 

- walther absconds with a fcking CARDBOARD CUTOUT after refusing to become a meistersinger. don’t think he can get more ridiculous. sorry not sorry bby

- act 1 scene 1 would also be hilarious. just for comedic shock reasons. walther is waiting in front of the church and waiting and waiting and waiting and - 

behold. there’s the girl. 

(is it obvious that mainly i’m v fed up with walther and his spontaneous urges to marry girls?)

Because the Author has lost her marbles, the Good Omens/Wagner’s Meistersinger crossover that no one asked for.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV), Die Meistersinger (Richard Wagner) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Hans Sachs Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens), Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger) Additional Tags: opera - Freeform, Historical Figures, Pining, renunciation, Poetry, Song Contest, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Young Love, The Arrangement (Good Omens) Summary:

It's the heyday of the medieval guilds, including that of the Mastersingers. Eva Pogner’s been offered in marriage as the prize in this year’s song contest (nice one, Dad). Nuremberg's Town Clerk Beckmesser, a pedantic twit, covets her. The widower Sachs, both a master cobbler and the guild's acknowledged laureate, loves her, but she's devoted to the young knight who just showed up full of modern poetry, and Master Sachs helps him win.

Wagner's story doesn’t mention the other parties who intervened.

currently included:

Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro (Glyndebourne, 2012, cond. Ticciati / dir. Grandage). Set in the 1960s in case you wanna see Almaviva boogie in a velvet suit. Also, I really love that Cherubino.

Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Glyndebourne, 2016, cond. Mazzola / dir. Arden). Ngl Danielle de Niese is adorable

Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Glyndebourne, 2011, cond. Jurowski / dir. McVicar). Gerald Finley is a fantastic Sachs and the Personenregie is fantastic throughout

Wagner, Parsifal (Bayreuth, 2016, cond. Haenchen / dir. Laufenberg). Thought-provoking production, Bayreuth acoustic, a very convincing Vogt in the title role

Puccini, Tosca (Covent Garden, 2012, cond. Pappano / dir. Kent). Dream cast of Jonas “bae” Kaufmann, Angela Gheorghiu and Bryn “I only look like a villain honest” Terfel

coming soon (once I get around to ripping the DVDs):

Monteverdi, L’Orfeo / Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria / L’incoronazione di Poppea (Komische Opera Berlin, 2016, cond. de Ridder / dir. Kosky). Pretty unique anniversary performance of all three surviving Monteverdi operas, originally staged in a single day. All three works are brought into excellent modern German and rescored by Elena Kats-Chernin for an orchestra including baroque instruments, an electronic guitar and folk instruments from around the world. Definitely worth watching, and absolutely stunning.

Händel, Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Glyndebourne, 2006, cond. Christie, dir. McVicar). The now-famous McVicar production still shines brightest with its original cast starring Sarah Connolly and Danielle de Niese, both absolutely delightful, greatly entertaining, and a really cute couple.

Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen (Bayreuth, 1991/1992, cond. Barenboim / dir. Kupfer). I’ve yet to actually watch this production (just unwrapped the boxset), but it’s been my go-to audio Ring for a while now. Siegfried Jerusalem and Anne Evans as Siegfried and Brünnhilde, respectively, are standouts, as is Barenboim’s subtle, somewhat languid conducting of one of opera’s best orchestras.

Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen (Copenhagen, 2005, cond.  Schønwandt / dir. Holten). Some have called it “the Feminist Ring” and it’s certainly female-centric to an extent that few other productions are, with Irene Théorin as a stunning Brünnhilde at the centre of a stellar in-house cast. It’s also an example of great Personenregie and a gripping family epic with great sensibility for characters and relationships.

Wagner, Parsifal (Metropolitan Opera, 2013, cond. Gatti / dir. Girard). Jonas Kaufmann as Parsifal and René Pape as Gurnemanz. ‘nough said.