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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: artist who feels the impulse to interpret them. Nobody will ever
know what Wagner himself thought of the artists who established
the Bayreuth tradition: he was obviously not in a position to
criticize them. For instance, had Rubini survived to create
Siegmund, it is quite certain that we should not have had from
Wagner's pen so amusing and vivid a description as we have of his
Ottavio in the old Paris days. Wagner was under great obligations
to the heroes and heroines of 1876; and he naturally said nothing
to disparage their triumphs; but there is no reason to believe
that all or indeed any of them satisfied him as Schnorr of
Carolsfeld satisfied him as Tristan, or Schroder Devrient as
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