Wagner's Meistersinger and the tradition of comic opera

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-186).Wagner's avowed aim in his music-dramas was to create a new type of artwork that had little in common with conventional opera. However, in his only mature comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he engages more extensively with the conventions of the genre. In order to determine the extent of this engagement, the dissertation looks firstly at the nature of comedy, and at comic theatre in Germany, as well as the development of a German type of comic opera in the years preceding Wagner's opera. This is followed by an examination of the conventions of comic opera in terms of subject matter, style and form and finally by an investigation of how these were applied in Meistersinger. While it is evident that he discards what is perhaps the most salient stylistic characteristic of comic opera, namely the use of closed song-like numbers with lively accompaniments based on simple rhythmic patterns, he adopts, adapts and re-invents many of the other conventions associated with the genre. This can be seen in his use of conventional aria types, traditional orchestral forms, ensembles, choruses and moral endings. Much of this marks a unique departure from the other works composed at this stage of his career and evinces his debt to the traditions of comic opera. The vocality of his protagonists owe much to the traditions of comic opera and the music is far more diatonic than in his other late works. Conventions of subject matter that he appropriates include characters derived from the commedia dell'arte, a plot involving two pairs of lovers facing various challenges, which are overcome through a certain amount of scheming and the agency of a higher and wiser authority. While set in remote history, the opera is far more realistic in tone than Wagner's other music-dramas, and the only one in which the supernatural does not figure prominently. Other comic elements include the use of burlesque, word-play, a degree of emotional detachment, the breaching of the "fourth wall", parody and satire