English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original.

‘The longest single smile in the German language’ has described this opera - a double triumph for Wagner as composer of both the words and music of his only comedy. But Roland Matthews indicates that violence is not far beneath the surface of this genial portrait of mediaeval Nuremberg.

Arnold Whittall’s analysis gives a remarkable bird’s-eye-view of the elaborate complexity of the score. Timothy McFarland explores the significance of the choice of subject: that nostalgia for a pre-industrial community, which was a symptom of the nationalist movement that finally destroyed the ancient liberties of the German cities. The long text has many subtleties which opera audiences can hardly appreciate without reading it, and the musical themes are numbered to indicate where they occur.