Christopher Webber has finally spat the dummy it seems in announcing that:

>And of course, Perfect Wagnerites often shift uneasily in their seats
>during such delightful - nay, plain funny - musical moments as Siegfried
>making quacking noises with a reed and Alberich doing his toad hops.  Such
>moments - there are more - effectively reduce pompous, hieratic statements
>about "absolute music" to platitudes.  ...It's great panto-mime (sorry!).

So I shall take your kind advice and now view the Ring as a giantuan
musical comic puppet theatre.  All the things that Wagner himself said
about the Schopenhauerian meaning of the Ring I now clearly see he meant
only in gest.

Well that's my final word in this discussion I'm afraid.  Looks like in
future I'd better learn to leave my Wagner interpretation to opera experts
like Christopher Webber.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
[log in to unmask]