Summer 2009 —Dir Werf’ Ich’S Zu— Volume 6, Number 3 Weisst Du Wie Das Wird? –Götterdämmerung

Wagneriana

Singe, Schwester, Summer 2009 —dir werf’ ich’s zu— Volume 6, Number 3 weisst du wie das wird? –Götterdämmerung

From the Editor

he May 23 Wagner and Strauss concert went spectacularly well. On the program were Strauss’s enchanting Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs), as T well as his “Ruhe, meine Seele” (Rest, My Soul), “Wiegenlied” (Cradle Song), and “Zueignung” (Dedication). Excerpts from Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Walküre in the second half provided much enjoyment. In addition to his expert accompaniment of soprano Julia Rolwing, pianist Lloyd Arriola performed Liszt’s powerful transcriptions of Tannhäuser. This concert offered a sophisti- cated sampling of some the best vocal German music. Rolwing, who sang the Strauss songs for only the second time in her career, demonstrated great agility, flexibility, and tonal accuracy as she swooped up and down the scales of these exquisite lieder. And in Wagner’s excerpts, she evinced a wonderful combina- tion of great sweetness and heroic flair, charming her audience with her sensitiv- Julia Rolwing beams ity, dramatization, and expressivity. Hers is a multicolored timbre that is very at the applause (Concert photos by pleasant to hear. Thomas Kwei) Arriola’s performance of the Tannhäuser piano transcriptions by Liszt elicited a standing ovation from the audience. And his accompaniment was delicate and attentive, providing solid, artful support for Rolwing. Despite the holiday weekend (Memorial Day), attendance was good. The concert was featured in the Boston Globe three times in the days leading up to the event and was advertised on WGBH and WHRB. Pick- man Hall at the Longy School of Music turned out to be an excellent venue for a concert, both for its pleasant acoustics and central location. We thank the following volunteers for helping make this event a success: Gina Canepa, Paul Geffen, Thomas Kwei, Eric Larivee, Joy Pianist Lloyd Arriola and Soprano Julia Rolwing at the BWS’s May 23 concert McIntyre, Robert Reed, Erika Reitshamer, and Barbara Petery.

1 A CD of the May 23 concert is available from our Web site (www.bostonwagnersociety.org); the cost is $12 in the United States and $16 overseas. We now accept credit cards and PayPal for this CD.

The Two Rings: Tolkien’s and Wagner’s

On April 26 Professor Edward Haymes gave a fascinating presen-tation on the interrelationship of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The talk included clips of Peter Jackson’s cinematic version of Tolkien’s monumen- tal work, with musical accompaniment from Wagner’s Ring. The effects were stunning. The two super-imposed works were a seamless match, and Wagner’s music added several levels of drama to the film. The merging of the two works was a stroke of genius. The CD of the lecture “The Two Rings” is available from the Boston Wagner Professor Edward Haymes Society. To order a copy, please contact us at 617-323-6088 or at the April 26 lecture and presentation [email protected]. The cost is $10, which includes shipping. (Photo by Dalia Geffen) The BWS Receives a City of Boston Grant

The City of Boston’s Cultural Council has awarded the Boston Wagner Society an arts grant. These much-needed funds will help defray some of our expenses associated with lectures, presentations, and concerts. We are very grateful to the Boston Cultural Council for their generous help and proud that we were able to obtain this grant. I particularly would like to thank BWS Treasurer Robert Reed for his tre- mendous assistance in preparing the grant application.

Appointment of Program Adviser

Conductor, pianist, and vocal coach Rainer Armbrust has done us the great honor of accepting a volunteer position as the Boston Wagner Society’s Program Adviser. You may have met him at his concert for us in January of this year. Maestro Armbrust’s advice will be invaluable in our quest to bring you interesting and enjoyable programs. We are very grateful for his assistance in this regard. Our very able Maestro Jeffrey Brody remains the Boston Wagner Society’s Music Adviser.

Please Volunteer!

The Boston Wagner Society urgently needs volunteers who can help out with events, mailings, grant ap- plications, the newsletter, and many other large and small tasks. Due to changed circumstances, I cannot devote as much time to our Society as I have in the past. Therefore your help is crucial. Please volunteer as much or as little as you like! If we cannot obtain enough volunteers, we may have to cut back on our programs, but I hope that won’t be necessary. –Dalia Geffen, President and Founder ______

Publisher and Editor: Dalia Geffen Proofreader: Erika Reitshamer Logo design: Sasha Geffen

We welcome contributions to Wagneriana. Please contact us at [email protected], 617-323-6088, or www.bostonwagnersociety.org. Address: Boston Wagner Society, P.O. Box 320033, Boston, MA 02132-0001, USA

2 Wagner’s Mastersinger: Hitler’s Siegfried The Life and Times of Max Lorenz

Wagner’s Mastersinger: Hitler’s Siegfried, a film by Eric Schulz and Claus Wischmann; Max Lorenz, tenor Featuring interviews with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Klaus Geitel, writer on music; Walter Herrmann, Lorenz’s biographer; Waldemar Kmentt, tenor; René Kollo, tenor; Liselotte Tietjen, dancer; Michael Wessolowski, expert on Max Lorenz; Hilde Zadek, soprano

Bonus: CD with previously unreleased material of Max Lorenz’s interpretation of Siegfried

Medici Arts Picture format: NTSC 16:9; sound format: PCM stereo; region code: 0 (worldwide) Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 53 mins. (DVD) + 74 mins. (CD) (mono) Number of discs: 1 DVD + 1 CD

agner’s Mastersinger: Hitler’s Siegfried is one of the few indispensable artist biographies that have appeared in recent years. Thanks to a very well written script and a fine selection of pe- W riod films, stills, and, of course, recordings, one comes away with not only a solid and infor- mative life of this incomparable Heldentenor, but also a perspective of Germany from the Weimar Re- public to the Federal Republic, as well as Austria and the United States. As if the basic biographical ele- ments and a generous sampling of his singing were not enough, there are also some very telling and meaningful commentaries and recollections of this artist gleaned from interviews with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, tenors Waldemar Kmentt and René Kollo, soprano Hilde Zadek, music critic Klaus Geitel, Lorenz biographer Walter Herrmann, and the dancer Liselotte Tietjen. And if all of that were not enough, there is a bonus CD of Lorenz in a complete Act 1 of Siegfried and excerpts from Act 2 in a 1938 Buenos Aires performance. And if all of that is still not enough, we can en- joy beautiful panoramic views of the interiors of the Vienna State Opera, the Dresden Semper Opera, and the Bayreuth Festival Theater. One sequence has the camera onstage in a performance of the Götterdäm- merung prologue with Lorenz and Frida Leider (there were giants in those days), and gradually the camera turns 180 degrees, thereby providing a look at the stage, the stage-right wing, the orchestra pit, and the auditorium itself. This provocatively titled DVD cum CD release provides a somewhat more genial counterpart to two other recent DVDs, Great Conductors of the Third Reich and Shadows in Paradise: Hitler’s Exiles in Hollywood. Obviously, a large part of Max Lorenz’s superlative singing career was spent in Nazi Germany. How- ever, Lorenz had two very powerful reasons to come to grief with the Nazi state: he married his agent, the Jewess Charlotte Appel, and, like his first boss at Bayreuth, Siegfried Wagner, he was known for homosexual affairs; once he was even caught in flagrante. That incident would have meant the end of his career had it not been for the intervention of Wagner’s daughter-in-law, Winifred. Winifred told Hitler that without Lorenz there simply would be no Bayreuth Festival, period, thus standing up to Hitler and saving Lorenz (and the Festival). Once, when Lorenz was out of town, the Gestapo showed up at his house to take his wife away to the “model” concentration camp Teresin (Theresienstadt). Charlotte called Winifred, Winifred called Gö- ring’s sister, and Göring’s sister called the Führer. The Gestapo man at the house was told to leave im- mediately without Mrs. Lorenz and never to bother either of them again. Your reviewer takes the time to recount this because the anecdote is in complete contradiction to the inaccurate title of this DVD, with its

3 unfortunate pandering. The title implies that Lorenz was one of those artists who stayed behind in Ger- many and willingly prostituted their art for the sake of Nazi politics. Viewers of this DVD will see that in the case of Lorenz, the situation was completely different. Lorenz stayed and sang in Germany and Aus- tria because by then (1943) it was too late to leave, and his singing was protected by the authorities—but he was no Nazi. That he was married to a Jewish woman and was also homosexual made for a certain controversy and tension in his day-to-day existence as long as Hitler was in power. This constant fear and insecurity plagued him during the Third Reich and even after. After World War II, he managed to resume his stellar career, sang all his big Heldentenor roles, and eventually turned to the character-tenor Fach. Success and adulation were constants, but at the end of the day, when all the guests had left and the awards and acclamation had come to a halt, he retreated to his familiar turf of uncertainty, insecurity, and aloneness. The carefully chosen generous musical clips in the DVD portion of this important (and sadly mis- named) release show that Lorenz was certainly a mastersinger. Unlike other singers who were cavalier in the extreme regarding pitches and, particularly, rhythms, Lorenz was a scrupulous musician who took all of the black and white on the page seriously. He did not force his voice. He had no need to; it was all there to begin with. His magnificent voice was open from top to bottom. There was never the slightest question as to whether he’d last through a Siegfried or a Tristan (unlike today’s singers!). He possessed not only the requisite strength and power to dominate a full Wagner orchestra but also, unlike so many others today, a tender and true lyric sound. In addition, his towering stature and powerful acting made for a compelling artistic presentation onstage. It is easy to see why he was the one and only tenor for Wagner’s music. His very last appearance in an opera house was at the Vienna State Opera in 1954. He sang well, as always, and left the stage door by himself; in echt Wienerisch fashion, not even a single bouquet of flowers followed him, let alone any congratulatory messages or throngs of cheering fans. He walked home alone and in tears. He spent his final years teaching younger singers, mostly tenors, including René Kollo and James King, but he could not shake off the perpetual fears, insecurities, and worries that had plagued him during the Third Reich. As soon as I heard the first few minutes of Lorenz’s masterly singing, I realized that no one living today can remotely be said to sing like him. The more I listened, the more this perception was reinforced. And at the very end Fischer-Dieskau confirmed my impression by saying that the tenors of today “are all . . . hot air.” Fischer-Dieskau’s characterization sounds better auf Deutsch, but it is true in any language. Those who have never heard Max Lorenz are in for quite a pleasant surprise. –Jeffrey Brody Jeffrey Brody, the Music Adviser of the Boston Wagner Society, is a composer, conductor, and pianist.

Just a Plain Country Boy: Memoirs of a Career in Music

By James King, with Donald Arthur

This is part 2 of James King’s autobiography, coauthored with Donald Arthur. It has been published in German but still awaits a publisher in the English language.

Chapter 1

The Hub of the Great Plains

Within this hive we’re all alive, Good whiskey makes us funny So if you’re dry come up and try The flavor of our honey. — Sign outside the Bee Hive Saloon on the Dodge City Trail

4 During the time I was growing up there, Dodge City, Kansas, was a pleasant, fairly quiet place where many roads met, perhaps the most interesting of which is the meridian line between Central and Mountain Time that runs right outside of town and made the city an hour earlier than the neighboring towns to the west. We kids used to tell a joke about an old farmer inquiring about bus connections from Dodge City to Cimarron, about forty miles down the Arkansas River to the west. When the clerk tells the oldster the bus leaves Dodge City every day at 4:15 P.M., arriving in Cimarron at 3:45, the farmer just scratches his head in bewilderment, then asks again to make sure he really heard right. Finally, the exasperated clerk inquires: “Well, do you want to buy a ticket?” to which the old geezer responds: “I don't believe as I do, but I shore wanna be here when that baby takes off!” To this day, while Dodge is on Central Time, the railwaymen move their watches back an hour to Mountain Time the minute their trains leave the station, which continues to trigger confusion in the minds of strangers puzzling over the seeming illogic of the timetables. By the time I arrived on the scene there, apart from the tourist attractions lining a replica of Front Street several blocks away from the original site where the action had once been, or the pioneer relics collection at Beeson Museum, there was little to remind anyone of the city’s rip-roaring yesterdays. Nevertheless, we Dodge-Cityites were all aware that our hometown was a place with a past, a one-time shoot-’em-up cattle town, the essence of the Old West, which, over the years, has served as the setting for countless tall tales, motion pictures, as well as radio and television dramas about what life was like at this point in frontier country where many roads met. The most significant routes that intersected in and around Dodge City were the asphalt highways and railway lines that kept the community thriving even during the rough years of the Great Depression, because the commodity we dealt in was one of the basic human essentials—food. It all began with the buffalo. Over the centuries, the huge herds of this uniquely American animal had served the basic needs of the Native population across these vast plains. With more than enough prairie grassland for them to feed on, they multiplied healthily, supplying their beneficiaries with food, clothing and shelter. Then the white men arrived.

Act 3 of Die Meistersinger at Tanglewood

James Levine led an extraordinary group of young musicians from the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) Orchestra, together with an A-list cast of singers, in a riveting concert performance of Act 3 of Die Mei- stersinger von Nürnberg on Saturday, July 11. For many of the orchestral musicians, this was a first expo- sure to Wagner’s complex music and to the demands of playing for over two hours without intermis- sion. These musicians hailed from all over the United States and Canada as well as from countries as wide- ranging as Bulgaria, China, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, and Turkmenistan. Admission to the Tanglewood program is highly competitive, with approximately 1,700 applicants vying for the 125 spaces this year. They arrived about ten days before the concert, never hav- ing played together as a group; but their musicianship was such that under the guidance of Maestro Levine and the TMC faculty, they could have ranked among the leading orchestras in the country. Soloists included the redoubtable James Morris as Hans Sachs, Johan Botha as Walther von Stolzing, Hei-Kyung Hong singing Eva, Hans-Joachim Ketelsen singing Beckmesser, Matthew Polenzani as David, and Julien Robbins as Pogner. The roles of the mastersingers were performed by Vocal Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center. The parts of the guild members, apprentices, and populace were sung by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Given the large chorus, the entrance of the guilds and the friendly spar- ring among the Shoemakers’, Tailors’, and Bakers’ guilds as to who had done the most to save Nurem- berg were particularly festive and glorious despite the fact that this was only a concert performance. The delight and enthusiasm on the faces of the young musicians was a joy to behold, both as they an- ticipated the performance and throughout the concert. This atmosphere extended to the soloists, who

5 seemed caught up in the moment even though all have had long and distinguished careers. Johan Botha’s singing was especially strong and clear, and James Morris reminded us once again why he “owns” the role of Hans Sachs. His voice may have lost some of its strength, but it has retained its sub- tlety. The soloists were positioned behind the orchestra and in front of the chorus rather than just behind the conductor as is more customary. This probably created a better balance, but it did make it harder to see (and at times to hear) the singers. –Miguel de Bragança Miguel de Bragança is a member of the Boston Wagner Society.

The Influence of Feuerbach on the Libretto of Parsifal

This essay is an expanded version of a talk that Paul Heise delivered to the Boston Wagner Society on May 30, 2007. Due to its length, it is being serialized in several issues of Wagneriana. This is part 6.

From the Buddhist viewpoint, it can be said that [the heroine, Kundry or Brünnhilde] possesses knowl- edge—which the hero has forgotten—of his prior incarnations. Curiously, when planning a specifically Buddhist opera entitled The Victors, which Wagner never completed—many of its ideas were incorpo- rated into Parsifal—Wagner proposed that the Buddha is conscious of all the protagonists’ prior incarnations, which they have forgotten. Wagner also proposed that his musical motifs would be especially effective in this music drama con- cerning Buddhist reincarnation, since musical motifs of foreboding or reminiscence could call to mind protagonists’ prior incarnations, making them ever present to the audience, though not to the protagonists: I was influenced to choose it . . . by its peculiar aptness for the musical procedures that I have since developed. To the mind of the Buddha, the previous lives in former incarnations of every being appearing before him stand revealed as clearly as the present. The simple story owed its significance to the way that the past life of the suffering principal characters was entwined in the new phase of their lives [P. 529] as being still present time. I perceived at once how the musical remembrance of this dual life, keeping the past constantly present in the hearing, might be represented perfectly to the emotional receptiv- ities, and this decided me to keep the prospect of working out this task before me as a la- bor of especial love. (Richard Wagner, My Life, trans. Andrew Gray, ed. Mary Whittall [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983], 528–29) Of course, Wagner finally achieved this in Parsifal. Wagner linked reincarnation—and therefore his concept of the “Wonder,” that is, his musical motifs’ capacity to transport all the past and future to the present, and relocate all that can be found in the far- thest reaches of space to this place to the spot where we now stand—with his Feuerbachian assumption that God and Nature, spirit and matter, are ultimately one. And these three ideas in turn Wagner con- ceived in light of his idiosyncratic version of Lobachevsky’s theory of parallels, according to Cosima’s testimony: Regarding poets, he says a poet is a visionary, and he tells me how Herwegh always needed a framework for his thoughts: “He grew lazy and, like all idle people, sought ref- uge in science, dissecting frogs. I wanted to get him producing again and suggested the subject of reincarnation, 9 cantos, three figures with 3 cantos for each, the same type re- curring at different times—what I mean by God, who runs parallel with Nature up to the point where the parallels meet.” (Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, trans. By Geoffrey Skelton. 2 vols. [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1978], 2:426) –Paul Heise

Paul Heise is an independent Wagnerian scholar and a research consultant for the Wagner Society of Florida.

6 The Mariinsky Ring in London Lacks Emotional Punch

Der Ring des Nibelungen, Mariinsky Theater, Royal Opera House, conducted by Valery Gergiev, London, July 29–August 1, 2009

Wagner audiences, at least on this side of the Atlantic, have their eccentricities, and people watching is always a rewarding sideshow to the main performance. So a fight in the audience during the applause for Die Walküre should perhaps have been less of a surprise than it was. Wagner uniquely breeds controversy—people don’t seem to come to blows during performances of Handel or Humperdinck—and a one-off performance of The Ring by the Mariin- The Mariinsky Ring at the Royal Opera House sky Opera at Covent Garden on four consecutive nights (July 29– (Photos of the Mariinsky Ring by August 1) has provoked some strong reactions, both in the audience intermezzo.typepad.com) and in the London press. A “Primary School Travesty,” according to one blogger. The casus belli on Thursday was the appearance on-stage of the (very youthful looking) production team. Someone thought they deserved to take a boo rather than a bow, and delivered one. The person sitting behind took exception. I sided with him (but not to the extent of joining in). First, booing is inexcusably rude. This is currently a live issue in London, as the captain of the visiting Australian cricket team has been booed by some of the rougher spectators, and this is regarded as unsporting. International cricket captains, especially Australian ones, can look after themselves and take their revenge on the field, but this option is not open to presumably sensitive opera types. More important, while it isn’t always easy to dissect why something as complex as a performance of The Ring doesn’t quite come off, I didn’t think the production was the problem. The set makes extensive use of gigantic humanoid figures, some with strange appendages. In Act 2 of Siegfried, one of the figures has a crab for a head, and another, flat on its back, stands in for Fafner, or possibly his lair (a sword thrust amidships does for Fafner, either way). These figures are inspired by Caucasian and Ossetian legends, and clearly, part of their role is to symbolize the gods. For example, in the final scene of Götterdämmerung, the giant figures fall slowly forward as Valhalla burns, revealing smaller figures on their backs (the humans who inherit the earth after the final catastrophe of the gods?). Less specifically, they create an otherworldly, timeless, and slightly sinister atmosphere, reflecting the weirdness of some aspects of The Ring itself. In the opening scene of Das Rheingold, the Rhine is represented by crouching figures stretching an elasticized, constantly moving, roughly circular net. This physical representation of the river emphasizes the separation between the Rhinemaidens and Alberich; they come off the net to torment him, and then retreat to it, where he cannot reach them. When he eventually plunges into the water to steal the gold, the situation is reversed, and they are left on the outside, powerless to stop him. Perhaps inevitably for a one-off guest production, the set construction looked a little slapdash. There were frequent creaks and thumps. An electrical malfunction brought onstage a new character to The Ring—one of the electricians employed on the Valhalla construction project. His screwdriver was of greater practical use than Wotan’s spear or Donner’s hammer. There was even a wardrobe malfunction: Fafner, holding up his apron with one hand, had to make an unscheduled brief exit stage-left for a safety pin. The lighting was effective and atmospheric, though not particularly subtle, with strong colors conveying different moods, and night club–type reflectors casting patterns to represent water, fire, and so on. Some critics have complained that the Mariinsky Orchestra is overambitious in programming and underrehearsed in performance. Apart from occasional school-orchestra wobbles from the brass section, I saw no sign of this. The Mariinsky tempos seemed appropriate, if on the fast side compared with some of the more contemplative interpretations. However, all four operas overran their scheduled timings for no apparent reason—in the case of Walküre, by nearly an hour. The problem with this production, then, was the singing. The Mariinsky draws its soloists from the

7 company, and they seemed to be singing Wagner because it was on the schedule; next week it could be Strauss or Stravinsky. The minor parts—for example, the excellent Woodbird—were fine. However, the lack of deep engagement with the roles was more apparent in the major parts. We have grown used to specialist singers in the great Wagner roles. John Tomlinson, Falk Struck- mann, James Morris, and Petra Lang have thought deeply about every aspect of these characters and identify profoundly with them. They know the parts inside out, and they can afford to spend their time onstage away from the prompt box. The major parts in this Ring were shared—understandably, given the vocal demands of performing on four consecutive nights. Neither of the two Wotans (Evgeny Nikitin for Rheingold and Siegfried, as well as Gunther; Mikhail Kit for Walküre) was remotely in the John Tomlinson league as regards either voice or presence, and I found myself constantly making unfavorable comparisons with Tomlin-son’s total mastery of the role in the 2007 Covent Garden Ring. This must be one of the hardest parts in opera, with its simultaneous re-quirements for majesty and pathos, authority and impotence, terrifying anger and tenderness. The underpowered performances of this Ring did little to convey these requirements. The Siegfried Siegfried (Leonid Zakhozhaev) portrayed the character’s early brashness and casual cru- elty better than his subsequent awakening to more tender feelings. Of the three Brünnhildes, only Olga Savova (Walküre) convinced—reinforced by her Waltraute two nights later. Larisa Gogolevskaya in Göt- terdämmerung was clearly struggling with her voice, and given the resources available in the squad, it was a surprise that she was not substituted at halftime. Of the larger male roles, only Alberich (Nikolai Putilin) and Mime (Andrei Popov) seemed truly to fill their characters. Gennady Bezzubenkov is a clas- sic Russian bass who delivered real menace as Hunding (and Fafner). The lack of “star quality” was mainly a negative, but it did have the interesting side effect of illuminating some of the more subtle aspects of the drama: for example, the ambivalence between good and evil, and between Wotan and Al- berich. Though antithetical, they are also alter egos, most clearly revealed when Wotan describes himself as Licht-Alberich, in contrast with—but also in similarity to—Schwarz-Alberich. When the two meet in Act 2 of Siegfried, the very anonymity of the singers reveals this equality more clearly than a more majestic Wotan could. Physical acting is perhaps less important than the voices and the quality of the orchestral playing. However, there are brief moments where the shock of violent action is required: for example, Fafner’s slaying of Fasolt and the fight between Siegmund and Hunding. Un- fortunately, the fighting in the audience was a lot more convincing than any of the conflicts onstage. Fasolt, Siegmund, and finally Hunding all succumbed in mysterious circumstances, possibly to an acute form of swine flu—certainly not to sword, club, or spear. Ad- mittedly, the cause of Hunding’s death has never been satisfactorily established, which is more Wagner’s fault than that of any director. This Mariinsky production has been seen plenty of times else- where, but never, as far as I know, in London. For those who have to wait for The Ring to come to them, the chance to see it—let alone on four Leonid Zakhozhaev as Siegried consecutive nights, as Wagner intended—is not to be missed; it did not have to be the best Ring ever. And it wasn’t. The reason for this was not the staging, or the orchestra, or the conducting, but the singing. The quality was uneven, but more fatally, its lack of engagement meant that the total experience lacked emotional punch. As the final curtain falls on Götterdämmerung, one should feel overwhelmed, exhilarated, exhausted, and unsure whether to laugh or cry. I felt pleased to have seen this Ring, but nothing more. And “pleased” isn’t really what Wagner was aiming for. –Richard Miles

Richard Miles is a new member of the Boston Wagner Society. He lives in Surrey, England.