>>23
If you knew anything at all about the history of Wagner performance, you would know that the central defining problem of this performance history - at least as far as "The Ring" is concerned - has been how creative and innovative conductors and dramatic directors could possibly reconcile their INSTINCTS in this matter with the LETTER of Wagner's libretto. Look at the testimonies of any of the major figures who have worked in positions of musical or dramaturgical direction at Bayreuth or elsewhere - Götz Friedrich, Daniel Barenboim, Harry Kupfer, Pierre Boulez...oh but sorry, you have NO IDEA who any of these people are, do you, because you know fuck all about Wagner or anything else - and you will see that their DEFINING PROBLEM AND DIFFICULTY was their fundamental lack of sympathy with the figure that Wagner had APPEARED to place at the centre of his drama and their irrepressible moral empathy with SIEGMUND, who appears in only HALF AN OPERA, but morally and philosophically dominates the whole, at least for anyone with any deeper understanding of this whole.