Following up on some previous ideas about Wagnerian aesthetics I must personally admit that I generally do not following singers when it comes to Wagner. Great Wagner conductors have ever since the time of Mahler treated the vocal parts like additional sections of the orchestra. Still I like to hear a good string or wind section when I hear Wagner being played and similarly I can appreciate good singing - and wonderful singing as well! However I have heard recordings in which the conductor was not up to the task. Then no amount of good singing can ever in my mind salvage the situation. Wagner always gives the orchestra the first and last say. That is partly what I meant when I wrote that late Wagner is above all symphonic in conception. I suspect this is the reason why Wagner recordings designed merely to show off particular singers invariably do not work. Would you listen to a Wagner recording made merely to show off the orchestra brass sections? However there is something else amiss here. Many late 19th century performing musicians stress the importance of declamation in Wagner. In some older recordings this style can still be heard. The biggest complaint I must say I have about Placido Domingo is that all hint of any sort of declamation is lost. The reasons seems to me all too obvious. I suspect he speaks little to no German. I don't know what the Spanish word for rhubarb is but that is what we get when he sings in German. The same goes for his Mahler. I am afraid I find the results so jarring that I can barely stop myself from laughing. Donald McIntyre once said in a radio interview that he refused to sing the role of Hans Sachs with Solti because he felt his German was not yet up to it. By being 'up to it' however he didn't just mean that the pronunciation should be 'correct' like that in an dictionary. Would it be enough to be able to pronounce the words 'correctly' when performing Shakespeare? No, and I agree that the same applies here. Satoshi Akima Sydney, Australia (I'm afraid I had to work on Saturday night and didn't get to the Mahler..)