Walther von Stolzing, who is visiting Nuremberg to do business with Pogner, has fallen in love with Pogner’s daughter Eva. He is anxious to declare his love for her and to find out whether she is betrothed. Her companion Magdalene tells him that Pogner plans to offer Eva’s hand in marriage, together with his entire fortune, to the winner of a song contest the following day. But only Mastersingers are eligible to enter.

Eva returns Walther’s love and is determined to marry no one else. When Magdalene learns that there is about to be a song trial she persuades her sweetheart David to give Walther immediate instruction in the rules of Mastersinging. David, an apprentice to Hans Sachs, Nuremberg’s greatest poet, expresses scepticism of Walther’s chances and proceeds to overwhelm him with just a small selection of the catalogue of rules.

When Pogner and the other Masters arrive, Walther begs leave to be admitted to their guild. He wins the immediate enmity of Sixtus Beckmesser, who is the Marker(the assessor) of the school and who intends to compete for Eva’s hand himself. Pogner outlines to the Masters his grand design for the contest and explains his motives: he is tired of hearing it said that the businessmen of Nuremberg care only about wealth. He wishes to prove that business and the arts go hand in hand by offering Eva’s hand and his fortune to the most worthy of the Mastersingers. Hans Sachs raises the possibility that Eva might not like the winner and urges that the people should also be given a voice in the decision, but his colleagues are not ready for such a democratic step.

Pogner introduces Walther, who explains that he learnt his art from Walther von der Vogelweide’s poetry and from Nature itself. He is allowed to sing a trial song, to be marked by Beckmesser; it breaks so many rules that he is interrupted before the end. Only Sachs admires Walther’s originality, but this is not enough to save him from failure. By a huge majority the Mastersingers reject his application to the guild. Walther leaves.

The apprentices are teasing David. Magdalene is distressed to learn from David that Walther has failed in his bid to become a Mastersinger. She and Eva persuade Pogner to go inside, and Magdalene then tells Eva of Walther’s failure to become a Mastersinger. Eva decides to question Sachs about Walther’s song test and finds him musing on the very subject. At first she does not reveal her interest in Walther; she suggests that Sachs, a widower, should himself enter the contest for her hand. Scarcely aware of the depth of Sachs’s love for her, she eventually reveals that she is in love with Walther.

Sachs pledges himself to work secretly for their union. Magdalene nters to say that Eva’s father is calling her and that Beckmesser intends to serenade her that night. Walther arrives in search of Eva. Now that he has failed at the song school, he has decided that their only choice is for Eva to elope with him. Eva changes clothes with Magdalene. Walther and Eva are about to escape when Sachs realizes what is going
on and moves swiftly to prevent it, loudly singing a folksong to make them aware of his presence.

As the couple cower in hiding, Beckmesser arrives to serenade Eva with the song he proposes to perform at the next day’s contest. Walther is all for settling his score with Beckmesser but Eva restrains him. Sachs insists that he must work late on Beckmesser’s new shoes – a somewhat noisy operation. Beckmesser begs him to be quiet; eventually the two Masters agree that the only way in which they can both get on with what they want to do is for Sachs to use his hammer instead of chalk to mark any faults in Beckmesser’s song. Magdalene appears at the window disguised as Eva, and the serenade begins.

Sachs as Marker is every bit as severe on Beckmesser as Beckmesser had been on Walther, and the ensuing racket rouses the entire neighbourhood. In the riot that follows, David beats Beckmesser, thinking him to have been courting Magdalene,
and Sachs swiftly leads Eva into her father’s house. The Nightwatchman is heard and the riot subsides.