104 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
he took the play along on his tours and appeared as Nachtigall in 
Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin, with distinct success (1832). Wag¬ 
ner may have made the acquaintance of Die gefesselte Phantasie 
while he was musical director at Madgeburg. Indeed he may have 
had to direct a performance of it in this capacity. Again, he may 
have witnessed a performance of the play during his prolonged 
stay in Vienna in 1861-1862. It is at present impossible to verify 
any such surmises. Wagner had a high opinion of Raimund’s 
poetic genius. In his essay on Das Wiener Hofoperntheater (1863; 
Gesammelte Schriften vii, 295ff.), he says: 23 
“What Vienna quite of itself can do for even Art, on the path 
of a purely speculative, an un-subventioned commerce with an 
imaginative, gay and genial public, is proved by two of the most 
original and delightful products in all the realm of public art: the 
Magic-dramas of Baymund and the Waltzes of Strauss. If you 
don ’t wish for higher things, then be content with this: indeed its 
intrinsic worth is nothing to be made light of. ’ ’ 
And again, in TJeber Schauspieler und Sanger (written in the 
early seventies, Gesammelte Schriften, 9, 186) : 
“Out of the Viennese popular farce, with its types still dis¬ 
tinctly akin to the Kasperl and Hanswurst of old, we see Ray- 
mund’s magic dramas rise up to the realm of a truly ingenious 
theatrical poetry.” 
Rudolf Fiirst in the introduction to his edition of Ferdinand 
Raimund’s works (Goldene Klassiker-Bibliothek), page LXV, says: 
“The possiblity that the scene of the singing contest, the tri¬ 
umphant lover Amphio, and the caviling critic Distiehon 24 , in 
conjunction with NachtigalFs attempts to piece together a prize 
song from misunderstood fragments, may have influenced the 
poet of Die Meistersinger von Numb erg, can hardly be set lightly 
aside.” 
•—unfolded his magnificent, heartfelt humor. And when Fritz Plank, the ever 
memorable, as the Vienna tapster in the capital alehouse scene of the first 
act set his heavy, stout limbs in droll motion to the catching tunes of Schu¬ 
bert’s German Dances, then rapturous contentment gleamed in the eyes of 
Mottl the artist: that was home, those were images and visions whose radi¬ 
ance derived from the native soil of Mozart and Grillparzer!” 
23 Translation by William Ashton Ellis, Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, vol. 
Ill (London, 1907), page 386. 
24 “Das Gedicht ist voller Fehler.” Which it is, indeed. Amphio’s prize 
song is the weakest part of the play. 
