Friday, August 5:
Still unable to have breakfast in the garden, R. finds the air unpleasant. He works and happily shows me the inserted half page. We are in the theater from 12 to 1 and see not only the Magic Garden scenery, but also its transformation into a desert. All of it magnificent. I find this technical work in the service of the imagination very affecting. For me, there is much discussion with Stein regarding Siegfried.
In the evening a singer, Carrie Pringle, who sings Agathe’s aria very tolerably. R. observed recently that some people one could only refer to approvingly as “tolerable,” “bearable.” When he takes up the new piano score and sees the arrangement of the first chord, R. says, “I cannot play from this - look how Weber composed it.” Then the duet with Annchen is sung, the trio, and by Jager the “Durch die Wälder” aria. Afterward R. draws my attention to an absurdity in the duet, when Max, as accompanying voice, repeats the words “Die Sonne verfinstert,” etc. He says, “If I were conducting it, I should simply say to the singer, ‘Leave it out.’”