Jos Janssen ended a wonderful post with the questions: >To react again on above quote and to sum up: Maybe the composer wants >to transfer something, but it is so much more interesting that you allow >emotion to be transferred to you, or putting it more to the point: that >you allow emotion to rise, to have your sense of romantic and rational >beauty be tickled and be prepared to be inspired. Robert's examples >above show that he looks capable of these emotions. But to put the >record straight: Was THE Hollander really poor, or do YOU just feel >he was poor, or do you FEEL like a poor Hollander? Well, at the beginning of the opera (which I like a lot, almost the only one by Wagner I really admire) the Hollander is so bereaved and so desperate (remember his wonderful scene "Die Frist ist um") that I really think that he is a pretty poor chap - and since I sympathize with him I feel a little bit like a poor Hollander myself (living only 10 kilometres away from the Netherlands makes this feeling more authentic). But all this is pretty subjective and others may think the Hollander is not a poor chap after all - but how could they prove this from the opera? Robert