It must also be understood that Wagner in some instances, when the right medium of his expression was clear to him, made concessions to what he considered the unintelligence of the public. Wotan’s waving of the sword is a case in point. The _motiv_ without the object he did not think would carry out the effect he intended to convey, although the absurdity of Wotan’s founding his new humanity on the power of the degenerate giants must have been apparent to him. Sometimes the Master changed his mind. Paris would have none of _Tannhäuser_ without a ballet and so Wagner rewrote the first act and now the Paris version of the opera is the accepted one. In any case it must be apparent that what Wagner wanted was a fusion of the arts, and a completely artistic one. So that if any one can think of a better way of presenting his dramas than one based on the very halting staging which he himself devised (with the limited means at his command) as perhaps the best possible to exploit his ideals, that person should be hailed as Wagner’s friend. It must be seen, at any current presentation of his dramas, that his way, or Cosima’s, is not the best way. The single performances which have made the deepest impression on the public have deviated the farthest from tradition. Olive Fremstad’s Isolde was far from traditional. Her very costume of deep green was a flaunt in the face of Wagner’s conventionally white robed heroine. In the first act, after taking the love potion, she did not indulge in any of the swimming movements usually employed by sopranos to pass the time away until the occasion came to sing again. She stood as a woman dazed, passing her hands futilely before her eyes, and it was to be noted that in some instances her action had its supplement in the action of the tenor who was singing with her, although, in other instances, he would continue to swim in the most highly approved Bayreuth fashion. But Olive Fremstad, artist that she was, could not completely divorce herself from tradition; in some cases she held to it against her judgment. The stage directions for the second act of _Parsifal_, for example, require Kundry to lie on her couch, tempting the hero, for a very long time. Great as Fremstad’s Kundry was, it might have been improved if she had allowed herself to move more freely along the lines that her artistic conscience dictated. Her Elsa was a beautiful example of the moulding of the traditional playing of a rôle into a picturesque, imaginative figure, a feat similar to that which Mary Garden accomplished in her delineation of Marguerite in _Faust_. Mme. Fremstad always sang Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_ throughout with the fire of genius. This was surely some wild creature, a figure of Greek tragedy, a Norse Elektra. The superb effect she wrought, at her first performance in the rôle, with the scene of the spear, was never tarnished in subsequent performances. The thrill was always there.