I wonder if someone will write an opera about me 300 years after my death?
That’s what happened to the humble cobbler Hans Sachs, when Richard Wagner cast him as the wise, avuncular protagonist of his comedy “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” In the opera, Sachs, the most famous of the historical Master Singers, is crowned with a laurel wreath and lionized by his peers.
The real-life Sachs was the product of a versifying mania which swept through Germany, beginning in the 14th century, and had the effect of transforming blacksmiths into bards, and bricklayers into balladists. Companies of these poet-tradesmen organized themselves in guilds.
Sachs composed some 4000 master songs, in addition to 2000 poetical works, 200 of which were verse dramas. He suffered a fair amount of tragedy, including the loss of seven children and his first wife. However, a second marriage late in life (at the age of 66) was a happy one. With his own death, he slipped into obscurity only to be rediscovered two centuries later by Goethe.
Today is anniversary of Sachs’ birth (b. 1494). By the way, he was also the subject of an earlier opera, “Hans Sachs,” by Albert Lortzing, who scooped Wagner by nearly 30 years!
Albert Lortzing’s “Hans Sachs” Overture:
Thomas Stewart sings “Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn!” (Madness! Madness! Everywhere Madness!) from Wagner’s version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4Qm1Aj4jY
The historical Hans Sachs’ “Nachdem David war redlich und aufrichtig” (Since David was honest and candid):
PHOTO: Hans Sachs: If the shoe fits…