[…] it was with excited anticipation that I set out in 1936 to chaperon my mother and three other ladies on a holiday in Germany, where all the crowded impressions of Rhine castles, the Black Forest, the Bavarian Alps, deckle-edged postcards, beds that seemed all eiderdown, pumpernickel and swastikas everywhere, were to reach a climax in my first Meistersinger at the Prinzregenten in Munich.  There were all the authentic trimmings, too: the Bayreuth-like acoustics with the concealed orchestra (conducted by Karl Böhm), the ceremonial fanfares of appropriate motifs summoning the audience to each act, the Sachs of Wilhelm Rode and the Walther of Torsten Ralf (all I remember of the cast); and the confidence that the majestic tread of the prelude would really lead to the rise of the curtain and the great chorale.