Ostensibly, Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg tells a humorous tale about artistically inclined craftsmen. Goldsmith Veit Pogner promises his daughter Eva's hand in marriage to the winner of a song contest, to which three men are potentially eligible. But upon closer inspection, what is at first glance a harmless farce in a middle-class setting emerges as a profound social analysis. Wagner uses his protagonists to show how a community deals with tradition and those who break with it and just how much innovation and deviation from the norm it can tolerate - as well as to examine what value society places, and should place, on art. "'Meistersinger' that's on an entirely new Wagnerian scale...it is full of smart ideas and moments of effective theater." (The Washington Post) "...as all stage productions should be, this is 200 per cent a Meistersinger to see." (Gramophone) "[Volle's Beckmesser] is so consistently alert, so wary of traditional caricature, so mellifluous in sound, and so well act