We have finished a full week of stage rehearsals. I’m one of the stage managers assigned to Meistersinger, Tom Connell and Ray Menard are the others. Tom is first on this production, he follows the score and calls cues for lights, sound, curtains. Ray is third. He also follows the score, but he cues the singers for their entrances and double checks that the props and set, especially offstage, are the way we need them. I’m second on this opera. I check props and make sure that the singers are in place for their entrances and have what they need for their entrances. I call the performers to stage. I don’t follow the score but use a stopwatch to let me know where we are in the performance. I can move around and so can deal with unexpected happenings if necessary.Yesterday, Thursday, we rehearsed Act III with orchestra. We had the full set, lights, costumes, the whole works. It’s easy to forget that the folks backstage as well as those seen by the audience need to rehearse. Yesterday was our chance for Act III.Wagner is not action-packed, but there are moments in each of his operas that are certainly packed with action, or as a colleague once said, “Nothing happens for hours and then all hell breaks loose in 5 minutes”. We have a moment like that in Act III, but the audience doesn’t get to see it, because it is the scene change from Scene 1 to Scene 2.The first scene is set in Sachs’ cobbler shop. It is a large interior set that is at least 40’ wide and 15’ deep. The second scene is set in a meadow outside the city. This set is a full stage meadow with the city wall behind it and a large arch leading into the city. The first scene ends with the wondrous music of the quintet, only 5 people on stage. The second scene begins with about 180 people on stage preparing for the festival. No problem, except that there are only 98 seconds of music from the time the big gold curtain comes in until it goes out to reveal this throng (and not the back stage crew)!Yesterday the scene change worked very well, but we always have a few adjustments to make and like anything that needs to be rehearsed, as we do it, it will work more smoothly. I’d like to take you through this minute and a half from my perspective behind the curtain.As the end of the first scene approaches, I call all of the performers to positions near the stage (but clear of the moving scenery, lights and all of the men necessary to make this “magic” happen). I forgot to mention that there are 6 offstage trumpets that play down by the curtain in the midst of all of this conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the assistant conductors. Tom calls the crew to standby for the scene change. In addition to the performers waiting to go onstage that adds another 80 to 100 people to the mix.As the curtain falls, electricians unplug and strike lamps; carpenters move platforms onto the rolling unit of Sachs’ shop and get into position to push it off Stage Left; the flyman starts moving drops in and out and some are pulled out of the way so the cobbler’s shop unit can roll into the Stage Left wagon well; prop men are standing by to pull the meadow ground cloth down into position, and other carpenters are ready to set bleachers Stage Left after the shop unit is clear. There is no shouting and very little talking; all that can be heard is the music.Just as the curtain is falling I escort Magdalena and Eva out of the shop and up to the arch in the city wall that is already in place and pass them along to Ray so that they are out of the way of the change. Ray has a large group of performers around him to get to into place when their way is clear. Then I go back to make sure that David goes to the side he needs to make his next entrance from and immediately make sure that Sachs and Walther go the other direction toward their dressing rooms and momentary quiet.By the time I head to Stage Right to cue the chorus, supers, and children, the shop unit is on its way to Stage Left, the props crew are laying the ground cloth and the electricians are setting, plugging and focusing their last lamps. When Ray and I see that the performers won’t be in the way of the change and that they can move safely into place, we send them into their preset positions. About 20 seconds remain, and as the members of the crew are finished with their assignments, they clear from the stage as the performers enter. The trumpets finish playing and go to wait for their entrance cue.Tom may have one of the hardest jobs in all of this. He has to sit still, follow the music, no distractions with literally all hell breaking loose around him, trumpets in his ears, call the cues and trust that each of the rest of us does our job. The curtain goes up and in less time than it took to read this, an incredible scene change has happened.Did I mention the 40 or so people that are waiting upstage center to make their entrances through the arch just after the scene starts with flags and standards?This is a great place to work. We work on the best with the best!

Hi, my name is Walther von Stolzing and I am a knight who enters the city of Nürnberg to do business with Meister Pogner. Well, I arrived on Saturday at his house, I met his beautiful daughter, Eva. Man, she is beautiful and my head started spinning making me somehow out of control. The next day I learned from a servant that they are in church and I make my way to the church where I see her - but her pesky governess keeps coming in between. She tells me that if I want to marry Eva, I have to become a Meistersinger and asks her friend David to teach me to sing - which of course is more said than done. I mean, to think that I, a swordsman, want to sing…!!!! Then I was between all these Meisters and I did not have a clue what was going on. All I know is that I want to sing to win Eva as my bride. Boy, did they give it to me! There was this particular man, Beckmesser, who was very unfriendly and he gave me a hard time. Then there was Hans Sachs who became my friend in the end.

So I sing and they throw me out and then I try to abduct the girl and that causes all hell to break loose. Beckmesser wants to serenade Eva. I can not shut him up, and neither can Sachs, who was brilliant enough to stop me and Eva from fleeing the town. So the whole town was fighting in the end and as Eva and I try to make a break, Sachs stops us, takes Eva home and takes me in his house.

Waking up the next morning, Sachs teaches me to compose a song of a beautiful dream I have had, which becomes the song that I sing at the Festwiese or Festival Meadow. In the end I become a Meistersinger and get Eva as my bride.

Why did I stick with it? I am stubborn and bold enough to just do that. I like to come into a town and turn every thing upside down to every one’s annoyance.

If Walther were writing, that’s what he might say. But sadly Walther is only a character thought up by Wagner. For me, he is one of the brilliant composers – he not only composed the music but also was a great poet. Walther is one of the most magnificent roles for me to sing. Why do I like the piece??? Well, the whole of Meistersinger is a lot about Wagner himself having difficulties in his life and in composing his music. People did not like his operas at first and it was revolutionary to compose an opera without specific arias — and then he also assigned a theme to every person and event in his operas…. a very distinctive signature!

I think that Sachs and Walther are both people that Wagner related to, and I know that some people will disagree with me on this, but that is the nice thing about having your own opinion. Walther comes to this town and breaks every rule in the book. First by speaking to Eva without the consent of her father and in a public place, which in those days was a crime. Both he and Eva could have been killed because she is still an unmarried woman, and promised by her father as bride to the one who will become the champion singer of the town.

Walther is madly in love with Eva and is going to take all the chances he can get and break all the rules he needs to in order to win her. He tries to learn from David how to sing and fails miserably. Then he tries to abduct her and Sachs stops that. In Sachs, Walther meets a man who helps him not only to be a poet but also a composer. And with Sachs’s help, Walther writes one of the most beautifully composed romantic songs in the world. There are other beautiful songs, but this one is special because Sachs is also in love with Eva in his own way. I think Walther, for the first time in his life, meets a father figure who teaches him something about life and the right way of doing things, without having to grab a sword to kill somebody just because you don’t like him. I think it is one of the best lessons one can teach anybody today. But Walther also learns in the quintet that Sachs is or was also in love with Eva and Walther realizes what Sachs has sacrificed for him and for Eva. When Eva begins the quintet, she gives Walther the inspiration to make major changes in the Preislied. And only Sachs realizes that Walther - and Wagner – have changed words and melody to create a prize-winning song!

I can carry on for a long time about Walther. There is so much to discover in the music; and that is one of the mysteries of music — that we all may have something to say about it!

Now, as Walther would say, “Fanget an!”– Let’s start!

My first day back on stage is always an incredible experience. I am still completely in awe of the majesty of the MET. As we all await our entrances in the Act III Procession, we think first of our friends whom for a myriad of reasons are not with us at this moment. Richard Vernon, whose generous, beautiful talent is no longer with us, but whose spirit we feel. Charlie Anthony, amazing gentleman, artist and friend, who always sings “Take time for tea” at this one point in the music, I still can’t tell you exactly which. I so enjoyed Bernie Fitch’s retelling of the story and Anthony Laciura rushing back stage to see if we had actually performed this critical first line of Act III, which the audience will never hear.

The moment has arrived for our entrances in the long procession, and my standard bearers rush to find their place. DO I REALLY HAVE STANDARD BEARERS? We enter and as I look out into the house again, my breath leaves me and the smile upon my face grows beyond measure. What an incredible place to perform, what a great place to work, what an honor to be here… Everything falls into place, this great complex machine has such finely tuned brilliant human elements, all doing their part, all creating this dream, and after seven seasons I still feel as though this is the first time I have stepped on this great stage. As I entered and saw all around me friends and colleagues amongst the Cast, Chorus, Music Staff, Stage Management, Directorial Staff, Supernumeraries, and Technical Crews, I felt in one instant, star-struck, celebrated and humbled to be a member of this great family, performing this Meisterpiece.

The scene plays out and at one point our director Peter McClintock says to the Chorus “at this point be even more inspired by his singing” speaking of the exquisite performance of Johan Botha. I turn to several of my colleagues and say, “being inspired by such incredible singing will be such a task…” The scene has to be repeated, to make sure we all feel a bit more inspired…. I will do my best, as always, it feels like my first time…