Argo Spier argospier

 

Oper Köln, Köln Germany 2009 - 2010


SEASON 2010 - World Cultural Heritage - Quotes

"As the Ruhr Gebiet (the industrial area in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, just across Belgium's border) will be the cultural capital of the year in 2010 and will draw much international attention, we feel that our reporting on Opera Houses and Music Halls in its near vicinity (Ghent and Antwerp is a mere 3.00h ride by ICE train from Köln; Brussels 2.30h) could cut a niche. Opera is not an isolated bussiness of the individual Opera Houses anymore, it has become a dialogue and a unification tool in New Europe. Incentives in Köln and the Oper am Rhein deliver the buzz." - Argo Spier

"To the American opera lover it is quite feasible to make a roundtrip visiting Köln, Dusseldorf, Duisburg and in Belgium, Brussels and Ghent in a three-day sprint for opera and classical music. This is really the message that the Music Halls in the near vicinity of the Ruhr should get out in 2010 – dialogue and feasibility." - Argo Spier

NEWSREEL - December 2009 - In the cold, suspenseful wintry air during the top Climate meeting in Copenhagen, the Oper Köln in Germany programmed two operas dealing with the inevitable destruction of fragility and tender dreams - Leos Janacek's 'family opera’, Das Schlau Füchslein, and Guiseppe Verdi's La Traviata. In both operas the theme of devastation ('Untergang' or the slow process of deterioration) puts the blame for ruin on an outside force. It's 'the other' that causes hurt and responsibility is shifted away from the individual for his own destiny. This 'denial' is also dormant in the Copenhagen talks. Most nations refuse to limit their CO2 gas emissions to the requested 30% 'norm' and there's that pessimistic Sarterian persiflage in the drama of the dialogue; the same with the operas. L'enfer c'est les autres (Hell is other people - Jean Paul Sartre.) This theme of 'the other being hell' and the cause of the individual’s cataclysm is, however, not new. It entered Baroque opera in the early nineteenth century. It’s a complete departure from the theme in ancient Greek tragedy in which it is man himself that is responsible for his destiny ('character is fate') and who destroys 'the thing he loves'. In La Traviata, Verdi makes Alfredo's father, and his provincial, class-conscious attitude, the direct cause of the deterioration of the 'object' of his son's love - the lovely courtesan Violetta. She dies in the last act of La Traviata inside the vulgar setting of a toilet stall in a restaurant called 'Coquet' in Paris. The newborn baby of the toilet attendant, snug in his innocent white-coloured pram, accentuates Violetta's sad, stigmatised death. It is the 'other' that causes all of the ill. Violetta's love is unfulfilled and her life is shattered. So is Alfredo's life. A father's dream has destroyed the son's. La Traviata, with its well-known 'drinking song' and magnificent stage setting (listen to the You Tube version of La Traviata - Drinking Song and La Traviata - Libiamo, ne' lieti calici - two different productions), had its origins in Alexandre Dumas' drama, La dame Aux Camélias, in the Téatre du Vaudevill in Paris in 1852. Verdi sends out a strong message of frustration and defeatism, one of discrimination between classes and the presumptuousness of culture. In Das Schlaue Füchslein, the message is also a tragic one but there's that foolhardiness of the 'poet' (in the skin of the Game Warden) to be determinant and NOT to give up the dream and his imaginative Muse (the little fox's nutmeg eyes reminded him of flitting evanesces of Terynk, the Gypsy young woman) but to elevate his insistence on 'other worldliness' to the psyche. It was the younger conqueror of Terynk, Harasta, who shot the little fox, stopping its animistic play and frustrating the Warden. He now retreats into the deeper regions of his own dream fusion, refusing to accept the ordinary drag of an imprisoned muse. The irony is that he was the one who loved freedom so much that he decided to 'capture' it for himself (he seduced the playful fox and put a garter around her neck to hinder her escape; this may be the cause of the coming into being of 'the otherness').

The choice of both operas amidst the end of the year's decadent surge of commercialism in which the spoiled boredom of the middle classes is rampant, shuffling from Christmas markets to hollow Christmas markets, is a superb one and illustrates the capability of the Köln Oper to take up its cultural responsibility and provide substance for thought.

Opera can be seen as the expression of what ought to be alive in society and what is dying. That would explain the disastrous effects the making of choices has had and it touches on the fragility of life itself. Not only in Europe, but also far across its borders, political decisions of magnitude have to be made today. Do we approach these questions with defeatism or do we escape from them by designing an all-together new set of problems? And there is the tension between frivolity and the conservation; and illusive traits; and religious presumptions. And everyday mistakes are made in the utopia of pluralism. (Ref. the goosy-uppy of the speech writer of 'Mehr Krieg für den Friede' [more war for peace], President Barack Obama, confusing at Copenhagen Nobel Prize awards the Swedish tradition of 'bellum iustum' [religious freedom and tolerance] with a New World Order and American missionary consciousness to justify America’s going to war (again); the hardcore theocrats running their empire building using tools of cowardly design, such as the placing of high explosives on commutative trains rails [it's ok in the face of the Apocalypse]; the desperate housewives moving in groups of ten in shopping areas, having a good time and wearing their plastic red reindeer horns and Santa Claus hats as a statement of the confusion between the celebration of Christmas and a world cup soccer match; the small boy actor in Das Schlaue Füchslein who lost his frog's head; Dietrich Hilsdorf and Athol Farmer's ensenierung of La Traviata (Stage Dieter Richter) and the desire to really explain decadence to the spectators ... oh, the overkill of it on stage, with the two men fondling and kissing each other as long as the song lasted. What has La Traviata to do with overt homosexuality and/or the embarrassment in the eyes about it?)

The two operas give the newbie to the Köln scene foresight as to what can be expected in the form of operatic entertainment in the Oper Köln in 2010 when the Ruhr Gebiet (including the cities of Dusseldorf, Duisburg and Essen) will be in the international limelight. Both operas offer high quality productions and both have mis-en-scene's that are sublimely put together. It is an immense pleasure to watch such contemporary and congruent productions function on stage. And the separate, illusive worlds they create are magificent. Herbert Schäfer's (Stage - Das Schlaue Füchslein) exploit of the child actors is most responsible and he has created a didactic dossier unparalleled in 'children's opera'. His intriguing 'world of an animated fairy tale' ('Märchen') satisfied children and grown-ups alike. In La Traviata, Dieter Richter (Stage - La Traviata) re-created a beautiful, realistic 'Verdi's world' (Paris in the 18th century) with such virile dynamism that it was easy to win the spectator. It has a refined realism that takes all hesitation away and invites in. The spectator not only watches the revolving stage but also enters the exuberance and exhilaration of the atmosphere of the salon ambiance of the late Baroque. And of course La Traviata IS Verdi - so there's a rush into Dieter Richter's illusionary universe of high drama and tragedy without reserve. It's one of the few productions in which everything on stage 'figures', 'comes together' and 'holds' (except of course for the mentioned stain of the over-exposure of the mentioned gay scene which should be re-thought completely). Proof of the success of both performances, and of the public's approval, is the fully-booked halls. On the 12th and 13th of December, even though both operas had been running for a while already, there was hardly a vacant seat. Also, the 17 minute ovation for La Traviata confirms the point. This is always very good news for Opera Halls and Directors, but there's a hidden doom scenario lingering in successful opera productions - they are benchmarks for future productions and as such set expectation levels. The next production has to be in the same league, and that is the situation now with 2010 approaching, when many more visitors will want a seat; it may turn out to be disastrous for visiting opera lovers (Americans visiting Köln) who want tickets. What can be done? Put on more performances? No, opera singers aren't horses! There may just not be enough seats available. (Opera lovers are strongly advised to contact the Opera's hotline and/or online ticket outlet even before they plan their trips to the Ruhr Gebiet and reserve their tickets as soon as possible. Do NOT contact the Press Officer unless it is concerning press matters.)

It is very exhilarating to experience opera in the Ruhr. There is that distinctive generation of vibrant energy that is contagious. And productions such as La Traviata and Das Schlau Füchslein are must-sees. In this part of Europe there is the unveiling of fragile, intimate truths of our western European culture. The Ruhr is the place to be for those who know what they want. Being the biggest Opera House in the Ruhr Gebiet, and located in a Drei Ecke of Opera Houses that includes the Oper am Rhein's two Opera Houses in Dusseldorf and Duisburg, the Oper Köln has to fulfil the heavy responsibility of being the 'leading Opera House' in the Ruhr Gebiet. This task it has completed, up to now, to a high degree of satisfaction. And there is no indication that this will change for next year. It is located on the easy access route of main travel arteries between Brussels (Belgium and Ghent), Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and Paris, Lille and Nancy (France) and this has helped in its drawing power and, together with the Oper am Rhein, it has in recent years re-defined the orthodoxy of opera as 'what IS, what IS to BE and what should BE' - opera, not as entertainment, but opera as signifier and re-enactor of the political and supra-world consciousness; opera as problem indicator and opera as problem solver at the same time; opera as conscience and opera as the giver of hope in a polluted orb. Dealing with themes of 'Untergang' (deterioration, destruction and ruin) in a time in which annihilation seems so imminent; that is the function and definition of opera. And the Oper Köln is dealing with it. It is placing the spectator before the inescapable tragedy of his own choices - defeatism (La Traviata) or internal psychic refusal to part with the Muse (Das Schlaue Füchlein) - that is the 'more' meaning of the function and definition of opera. Re-definition, consolidarity and orthodoxy are aspects that will surface in the Ruhr in 2010. From 2011 onwards the levels of these will reach even higher peaks when, as the Kölner Stadt Unzeiger reported on 10 December 2009, the Bundesfinanzminister, Herr Wolfgang Schäuble, will start saving 10 billion Euros per year for the next ten years ... just to allow the middle classes of Germany to continue on with their senseless consumerism ... talking of perpetuating a conflict of classes. (It's probably a lie - more will be needed and even then nothing specific will come of it - the financial crisis will just take on other forms.) However, there will be less money available for opera, the vital art form needed for sanity in the community of the human race. But then again, the discussion is turning towards the concept of 'irony' and we are not dealing with the concept 'Untergang' anymore...

Devia sings Sempre libera (Verdi: La Traviata - Tokyo 2006)

Argo Spier, Opera Pages
Consulting editor, Joneve McCormick, USA

 

ARCHIVE - 2008 | 2009

The re-definition of Puccini's opera constitutes a Western prototype as Madama Butterfly  -   profound creation by  Ausrine Stundyte. Die Zauberflote, lavishly filled with spectacular  stage and costume design by Peer Boysen.

November 2008 - The Oper Köln programmed two very appropriate productions for the European pre-winter month of November -- Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's 'free mason' opera, Die Zauberflöte, and Giacomo Puccini's 'ultimate' tragedy, Madama Butterfly. Both operas deal with status quo's in the processes of rites of passage and the inevitability of transformation. The keynote in both operas is the lethal fatality that has re-formative power when forces of a jenzeits - death and possible annihilation - enter the reality of a 'dies Seits' life. The Opera's choice for these two operas - composed more than 100 years apart - proves its authentic ability to contribute to the under currents of the collective unconscious of society. Opera is used as a fine tool for the expression of the unsaid. Die Zauberflöte, with its 'shadows and figurines' from 'deep, dark interiors of the night' -- its majestically noble chords in the key of E-flat major with three flats, the opera's Masonic home key, suggests this; and the alchemic theme of three, a coda of purification, was scheduled for the 31st of October on the Fest am Vorabend von Allerheiligen, the Heathen Celtic Samhain, or Halloween as it is called in its watered-down version, when in the streets similar dressed-up figures filled the dimly lit night. Madame Butterfly, Puccini's stalling orgy, celebrating the high price there is to be paid for true untainted love -- that is, death -- was performed on the 1st of November, the evening of All Saints' day.

This co-incidental programming, together with the quality of the performances and the exuberant innovative stage designs of both operas, make these particular two productions memorable communicative events. In both productions the spectator has ample middle-distance and opportunity for the re-enactment of the transformational processes in his own life. Die Zauberflöte, lavishly filled with spectacular stage and costume design by Peer Boysen, takes the spectator on a journey in which he will grow from the satisfaction of mere apprenticeship into jubilation. In Patrick Kinmonth's regime of Madame Butterfly, which is stripped from all its outdated and cheap exotics, the so-called 'a la giapponese' frivolities so craved by previous generations, there is no distracting from the core of this tragedy-in-opera whose purpose it is to initiate the spectator into the pain of the tragedy of true love. The opera, as all new moments in life, is re-defining itself in the production. It is one of the most suggestive seen on stage for a long time. Never was Madama Butterfly's environment so real, the ersatz of her captivity so unadulterated and naked and the irony of her tragic naivete so steadfastly set. It simply is the barest, simplest and most beautiful opera production of Madame Butterfly seen in a long time. The engendering is soft, rich in all its simple suggestive undertones and transparent in its setting of environment. The various ‘see-through' horizontal layers don’t allow disruptive lapses between fast-paced action episodes; on the contrary, it aids concentration and creates an inductive attention in the spectator. At the same time, the whole isn't lost from sight when a happening is taking place in either fore or background. It is this concentration, as inter-active median of space between spectator and performer, where the essentiality of opera comes about. It permits and assists the performers to create and hold tempo -- something Puccini had in mind for the opera. Patrick Kinmonth and Darko Petrovic's stage and costume design is of the most professional in the market today and, in this production of Madame Butterfly, their art provides and supports the performers to the extent that the whole of the opera achieves its firm form-content unification. Leading soprano, Ausrine Stundyte (as Cio-Cio-San, Madama Butterfly), and the tenors Andrew Richards (the US officer, Pinkerton) and Bruno Caproni (Sarpless, US- Consul) create an 'agony of love' that's so real and so new. The production will be a jubilant one throughout its existence.

The re-definition of Puccini's opera constitutes a Western prototype as Madame Butterfly and only in the final act shows that 'this Butterfly', too, is merely a front and a palimpsest, set there for the spectator to re-enact with. The appreciation and awe of the spectator at encountering this was very clear on the 1st of November, the night of the full-house Première, when the first reaction after the hara-kiri of Cio-Cio-San with a razor blade -- she cut her own throat most violently -- was complete silence before being followed by a very composed ovation of 20 minutes. The Kinmonth production of the Opera Köln is an absolute must to experience, and, as stated, preferably in conjunction with the Die Zauberflöte production, by the same Opera.

 

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Ticket hot-line 0221 (0)221 28 400

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PRESS OFFICER
Georg Kehren
Dramaturgie/Presse
Offenbachplatz
50667 Köln
Tel. 0178 - 97 95 240
Tel. 0049 - (0)221 - 221 28514
Fax. 0049 - (0)221 - 221 28367
georg.kehren@stadt-koeln.de
(Press matters only)

pictures courtecy ©kölner oper

ARCHIVE - 2008 | 2009

June 2008 - With the somewhat unorthodox choice for Stage Director of the tenor and all-round Argentinean artist José Cura, the Oper Koln produced, as one of its last operas in the Season 2007 - 2008, one of the loveliest of the 'smaller' operas (there were only 100 choir members) of Guiseppe Verdi, Un Ballo in Mashera. The performances of the Texan, Ray M. Wade Jr., Riccardo, Bruno Caproni from Ireland and Chiara Tagi from Italy in Un Ballo in Mashera are supreme and represent the top quality in soprano and tenor voices that the Oper Köln opts for. Their character casting (by José Cura) perfectly brings about not only the fascinated and terrible fatality of a 'Dreiecksthema' in the MMF-relationship, the allure of a King's murder (as was Verdi's original theme, the murder of the Swedish King Gustav III, before he had to rewrite the opera due to the political sensitivity of the case in 1859) but also cuts deep into the racial and mixed relationship theme that has become more and more actual in the EEC since its unification. The presenting of Ray M. Wade, Jr. as an 'African dictator' however, with obvious references to the Ugandan Dictator Idi Amin in the mid-sixties (his photo was presented on a huge banner across the stage revealing the grotesqueness of the dictator in his typical braided uniform) might be viewed by some as too obvious a stunt, even overdone, and it is debatable whether this reference results in an idiom that really sells to European audiences.

The productions of the Oper Köln are an essential part of the mainstream opera scene in Europe today and having a stopover in Kôln is a feasibility that fits into any holiday tour or operatic research.



ARCHIVE - 2007 - 2008

A standing ovation of 20 minutes and 8 curtain calls is how the international audience at Koln on the 10th of March 2007 evaluated Robert Carsen and Patrick Kinmonth's 'Ring des Niebelungen', the full version that included the 'Vorabend, Das Rheingold', the 'Walküre', 'Siegfried' and the 'Gottdämmerung'. Markus Stenz conducted the Kölner Opera orchestra and Manfred Voss was responsible for the light effects on stage.

Robert Carsen and Patrick Kinmonth's 'Ring an zwei Tagen' -- an attempt was made to call it the 'Carsten Grüner Ring' but this didn't seem to impress the audience and everybody calls the ring 'Carsten's Ring' or the 'Kölner Ring'. It will be repeated this week over 5 days and the nearly impossible to get 'remaining' tickets can be purchased directly from the Opera's homepage.

 

international audience

Audience at  the Kölner Oper 'Ring an 2 Tagen' March 2007 Audience at  the Kölner Oper 'Ring an 2 Tagen' March 2007


The feasibility of people from neighbouring countries visiting Köln for the 2-day Opera production of Carsen proved greater than judged by the Kölner Opera. People from Belgium and the Netherlands came by car and in mini-buses, individually and in group trips arranged by Wagnerian Societies. Present also were people from as far away as Northern England and Japan. Local German enthusiasts tried for last minute tickets and stood waiting at the entrances, but to no avail.

Attendance by people from neighbouring countries has much increased since the unification process in Europe began, thanks in part to cheaper flights offered by airlines such as Ryanair and City Air, and to faster train connections with TGV, Eurostar and German Ice trains with their bonus, joker or buy -a-ticket-before-a-certain-date travel offers and the Opera's own incentives, such as offering to pay for travel on the local metro, tube or bus on the day noted on the Opera ticket.

Other incentives, such as reduced parking for those with Opera tickets, have added the access to Opera Productions in neighbouring countries. In this sense Opera has become a 'democratic' vehicle that establishes and further strengthens unification ties. This is particularly the case in the 'Drei Ecke', Luxumbourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Köln areas with Opera in Köln, Aachen, Essen, Brussels, Ghent, Amsterdam and Luxumbourg city with its ulta modern new concert hall since June 2007.

 

unification tools

Audience at  the Kölner Oper 'Ring an 2 Tagen' March 2007

Another of Wagner's operas, the Löhengrin, will be in production in Aachen

Audience at  the Kölner Oper 'Ring an 2 Tagen' March 2007


The Wagnerian 'cult' draws at every production of the 'Ring' its firm Germanic hard-liners and believers, many of whom had visited the Berliner Opera production a few weeks earlier and travelled by fast train, the ICE, from city to city before arriving at Köln on the Rhein.

Attendance at the 2-day production of Carsen and Kinmonth's, 'Ring an zwei Tagen' has proven mobility isn't an issue anymore. Opera lovers came from near and far, from the region surrounding Köln and from neighboring countries and from as far away as Japan and the USA. The crowd was diverse in lifestyle, ranging from Embassy staffers and CEO's to artists, doctors and other professionals and entrepeneurs. They have greater and easier access to the opera and, in the long run, this will prove what a formidable tool Opera is in the fraternising processes that accomplish the unification of Europe, bringing together peoples and cultures, and in creating good will around the world.

the venacular of recognised symbols

Another of Wagner's operas, the Löhengrin, will shortly be in production in Aachen, a small provincial town only some 80 km away from Köln and with equally easy access to its opera.

Carsen and Kinmonth's 'Grüner Ring' and factories in Köln

Excerpt of article - 'Untergang' in the Carsen and Kinmonth production of 'Ring an 2-Tagen', Köln Oper.
©argospier20/03/2007 - 1000 words.
Editor/Consultant - Joneve McCormick

Carsen and Kinmonth’s production of ‘Untergang’ in Köln zaps into the age-old dispute concerning the role of fate in human and god-relationships, refusing both interpretive and expansive perspectives in its 'non-ironised' version. On the first level it seems a mute and silent production, but on various other levels it is a far more ‘dangerous’ production than Ivo Van Hove’s in Gent. The absolute cataclysmic disaster of the ‘Dämmerung of the gods’ becomes eerily real in it. There is nothing mankind can do to avert the destruction of his own habitat. The ‘Ausgang Punkt’ (point of departure) for Carsen and Kinmonth is that ‘Wagner ‘soll nicht ironisiert werden’. He must be taken at his ‘word’ and his vision of the collapse of the world, godheads and Valhalla, the perfect paradise, is the only true orthodoxy. The crossover or metamorphosis of Myth into reality in the production is to come about through orthodox interpretation.

Opera, including Wagner’s opera, is the re-enactment of original drama and the actions performed on stage reflect the ‘prescriptions’ of the composer. In the case of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’, opera is also the re-enactment of mythological truths. Carsen and Kinmonth take this very seriously. Wagner is the High Priest of the Myth, and how he ‘saw’ it should be followed as closely as possible. He solidified the Wandering Myths into a mega epos and is therefore the only one having ‘first access’ to the original archaic (regardless to what extent he dramatically interpreted various strains of the myths and whether his concept of Nature was idealistic or not.) Carsen and Kinmonth therefore use in ‘Ring an 2-Tagen’ easy accessible models of definition: a sword is a ‘real’ sword; nitrifying the ‘Umwelt’ (nature around us) is throwing debris into a river; industrial ‘dragons’ are cranes used for build mega complexes and digging unnatural holes into soil; power excretion is via the collectiveness of the masses, 40's style and in uniform. These definitions are of recent ‘archaic’ origin. In the case of the uniformed masses, the ‘old’ battlefield strategies are portrayed. (Modern warfare has changed. Concepts like martyrdom and protest-by-suicide - attacks on trains and buses full of commuters, as in London and Madrid - are the ‘real’ situations, anno 2007, on the ‘battlefield’. But this is not what it is about for Carsen and Kinmonth.) Using the collective understanding of definitions in the spectator's ‘recent past’ (World War II) and allowing small margins of novelty (the crane that is Fafner), Carsen and Kinmonth have created a comfortable middle distance between the archaism of the original exposure of mythological truth (how Wagner saw it) on one side and the spectator's ‘own recent past’, on the other side. This conveys the both eerie immediacy and the connectiveness that hangs over the whole of the production, veiling illusion (like a silken cloth over the dead body of a much beloved person.) The transformative power of the production is immense.

Carsen and Kinmonth have made of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ a true story that delves deeply into the consciousness of the spectator. The desire to dub the production the ‘Grüner Ring’ is understandable, although this is a rather impoverished naivety that distracts some might argue. The destruction of our ‘Umwelt’ has already begun. It is the true story of how ‘present day’ global warming is exponentially caused by man, his industrialised society and his miraculous big tools. (The thong of the mentioned Fafner crane in ‘Siegfried’ fills a third of the stage!). The opera is a prophetic warning of what is happening and is going to happen in the immediate future, defeatist at that, but it is true! It isn’t a Myth anymore. (Leaving it there whether society should still be called ‘industrial’ or rather ‘silicone and virtual’.)

The duo proved that the motor in mythical drama is um-bilingually connected to what lives in the collective, in the ‘Volkergedanken’ of the unconscious. And with ‘Ring an 2-Tagen 2007’ the connection is made - with tremendous success. This ‘special connected communication’ was almost tangible and the ‘letting speak’ of the Wandering Myths in the way Wagner himself had spoken them in his unified grand Germanic epos has reaped its reward and it ticked off the score in the arena, scoring higher than the production by the Vlaamse Opera in Gent, Belgium. ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen – Ring an 2-Tagen’ had a standing ovation of 20 minutes and 8 curtain calls, while that wasn’t the case with Ivo Van Hove’s ‘Walküre’. That proves the point, any serious operagoer will agree.

Both ‘Rings’ are of such stature and the enthusiasm generated at both locations so immense that the visiting and experiencing spectator will in the end find it has been imperative to attend both. The Kölner Oper in Köln and the Vlaamse Opera in Gent well deserve all the buzz. The Operas will, however, have to consider prolonging their time schedules in running the ‘Ring’ lest situations such as the one in Bayreuth manifest. It is whispered in the ‘insider’s corridor’ that waiting lists for Bayreuth have lengthened … to 10 years booking in advance. This doesn’t diminish, but accentuates, the fact that the ‘New Wagnerian Sanctuary in the Low Lands’ has considerable growth potential.

Argo Spier

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