The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [100]
Essentially, the two operas have much in common. Each is centred on four figures: a young hero and a young heroine; a boorish, insensitive dark figure who is a rival for the heroine's hand; and an older figure who selflessly masterminds from behind the scenes the hero's ultimately successful wooing of the heroine.
In Die Meistersinger the heroine Eva is established as the supreme prize for any man to win when her father, a prominent local citizen, announces that whoever wins the great song contest held by the Mastersingers of Nuremburg may be given her hand in marriage, There are three possible competitors: the chief dark figure Beckmesser, a leading Mastersinger who is obsessed with the Guild's traditional rules of song composition; the hero, Walther von Stolzing, an unknown newcomer to the city who sees Eva in the opening scene, falls in love with her and is determined to win her; and a mysterious older figure, also a veteran Mastersinger, the wise, fatherly Hans Sachs. Initially the hero seems doomed because his first effort at a song breaks all the complicated rules laid down for songwriting by the Guild of Mastersingers, and he is grimly ruled out of order by Beckmesser. Only Sachs perceives that Walther's song in praise of love, spring and new life is in fact of exceptional beauty. The Mastersingers' rejection of Walther thus shows them to be an `upper world' based on false values and limited awareness, while the hero, in the `inferior realm, represents the life and truth which they (particularly Beckmesser) completely lack. As the action prcceeds, Beckmesser is more and more revealed as absurd, egocentric and anti-life. Eva dreads the possibility that he might win the contest and therefore her hand in marriage; and would like to hang on to her `father-figure' Hans Sachs, But he tells her that he is too old for her, and that she must have faith and courage to move forward, to embrace the prospect of new life. Eventually the two chief competitors come before all the inhabitants of the city for the final test, Both are in fact intending to attempt the same song, because Beckmesser has stolen a copy of the song written by Walther, imagining that it is the work of the old master Sachs. Beckmesser makes a complete hash of it, because he is not in touch with life, and is laughed off the stage as an `unreconciled dark figure' almost as memorable as Shylock. Walther triumphantly wins the contest and Eva's hand, and the opera ends with a universal hymn of praise to the wise Sachs who has guided the story to its happy conclusion.
In Der Rosenkavalier the part of the older figure is played by the Marschallin, an imposing lady portrayed as in early middle age (although she is in fact only 32), who has a young lover Octavian. The Beckmesser role is played by her boorish and lecherous cousin, Baron Ochs, who tells her he is hoping to marry a lovely young heiress Sophie. Can the Marschallin recommend a suitable young man to carry the traditional `silver rose' to his fiancee, to demonstrate his intentions? The action of the story shows how the older woman selflessly sends her young Octavian to woo Sophie, nominally on behalf of Ochs, but with the predictable result that hero and heroine fall in love. Sophie's father, a nouveau riche who wishes his daughter to marry into the nobility, plays the traditional role of `unrelenting father' in trying to force her into marriage with a man she detests; but the Marschallin masterminds the final routing of Ochs when he is lured into a midnight assignation with a young girl Mariandl, who turns out to be the hero in disguise. The foolish Baron is exposed