Posted on 08/19/2011 12:49:49 PM PDT by mojito
Richard Wagner, the most repugnant of musical nationalists, has become an unlikely poster child for culturally progressive Israelis. The recurring controversy over the public performance of work by the Nazi Party’s favorite composer erupted again in late July when the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, led by the Austrian conductor Roberto Paternostro, performed a much-publicized Wagner program at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Wagner’s self-erected shrine and a pillar of the Nazi movement well before Hitler took power. (Paternostro received a standing ovation from the largely German audience, which understandably liked the idea of Jews playing Wagner.) Morbid ethnocentrism with overtones of nationalist extremism is acceptable to the Israeli left, it seems, as long as it isn’t Jewish.
Every so often a prominent musician makes a point of sneaking Wagner into a public concert in Israel. Zubin Mehta, the Indian-born conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, played a Wagner excerpt as an encore to a 1981 concert; Daniel Barenboim, conducting a German ensemble, did it again at the 2001 Jerusalem Festival. And in each case public opprobrium put Wagner’s scores back on the shelf. At the Bayreuth concert, some of the Israeli musicians explained that they never would perform Wagner in Israel but felt free to do so elsewhere. Performance of Wagner’s music is unofficially—but effectively—banned in Israel. But should it be? Mark Twain quipped that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. By the same token, banning Wagner’s music is a better idea than it sounds. Suppressing the performance of important musical works is not a small matter, though, and deserves careful thought rather than emotional reflex.
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
There was a play about 15 years ago with Ed Harris playing his American interrogator. Not a good play but interesting. I was very good friends with the late Werner Klemperer. He told me that his father had nothing good to say about Furtwangler. I'm just repeating this - I know nothing about the real story.
A lot of his anti-Semitism was borne out of a personal grudge against a French-Jewish composer named Meyerbeer, who beat out Wagner for attention in Paris early in his career. Oddly, most of Wagner's operas were premiered by a Jewish conductor (don't recall the name at the moment), so he evidently didn't have a problem with Jews who were on his side ... go figure.
Wagner’s wife Cosima (Liszt’s daughter) was more anti-semitic than he was.
I like Wagner. Besides without him we wouldn’t have had Dolly Parton. And what sort of world would that be.
Don’t I wish I looked like Robert Duvall now at 62! Actually I wasn’t a bad lookin young skinny dude in 1983 at my first wedding. She was called home by the Lord but my new wife is keeping me on the straight and narrow. Tryin’ to, anyway.
I do remember Germans yammering at me so what about Auschwitz why did you have to bomb our cities. I have since given away all my souvenir German stuff too bad since I am ethnically half German but American all the way. Guys I served with in FRG who spoke German better than me even with German surnames were appalled at how they were treated by the locals. My bride flew into Frankfurt airport and she was furious how they treated her like a Jew because of her dark hair and eyes. Ironically I beat out two Jewish guys who tried to marry her before I did.
BTW, G-d bless Israel!
Your experiences in Germany are certainly eye-opening. My husband and I were in Pere Lacaise cemetary in Paris several years ago after seeing the grave of Maria Callas. A German couple came up to us and started yammering about (get this!) “where were the crematoriums? The crematoriums?” They apparently meant the indoor cemetery where Callas was buried. But all we could focus on were Germans carrying on about crematoriums. We had a good if awkward laugh about it.
My best friend survived the Blitz as a child of about 3-5 years. The worst fight I ever saw him get into was when his wife suggested Dresden should never have happened. But then, as a Brit, he thinks Hiroshima should never have happened. Go figure!
I don’t believe in banning music. I also didn’t know that Tchaikovsky was an especially notable antisemite. Then again, he was an odd fellow and a homosexual who married a nymphomaniac.
Just because someone made comments here and there doesn’t make them notable in that sense for their time. Tchaikovsky’s mentors were the Rubinstein Brothers and he held their opinion in high regard. He was highly influenced and admiring of Mendelssohn.
Not surprising - Klemperer was a great conductor and suffered greatly because of the Nazis. But, yes, Furtwangler underwent a denatizification procedure and was cleared, and was frequently used for broadcasts by RIAS (Radio in the American Sector).
Hermann Levi, a Jewish conductor, led the premiere of Wagner's final opera, Parsifal. A real miracle of art - that a moving, religious-based work could be composed by someone who was the antithesis of a religious man.
But a great many notables, including Maria's beloved Bellini, are interred there.
Perhaps it was a memorial - I was last in Paris in the early 2000s. My memory might be playing tricks. It’s in an interior portion of the cemetery and is lined up with other vaults or, perhaps, memorials.
I really hate this scattering of ashes stuff. Due to this, I will never get to visit Steve McQueen’s grave. Grrrr...
Just googled the gravesite of Maria Callas. Indeed, she DOES appear to be buried in Pere Lachaise (I think that’s the correct spelling).
Maria Callas – The opera singer's ashes were originally buried in the cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered into the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece. The empty urn remains in Père Lachaise.
Findagrave,com says:
She was cremated and her remains kept in a niche at the cemetery of Pere Lachaise until the spring of 1979 when the urn was taken by plane and scattered over the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece by the minister of culture for that country. [The ashes were flown to Greece; the scattering was accomplished from a boat.] A niche plaque was placed as a memorial by the cemetery while indicating the now empty space was the initial resting place for the urn containing the ashes of Maria Callas.
At http://www.death2ur.com/maria_callas_gravesite.htm:
"One of the most renowned opera singers of the twentieth century. The photo on the right denotes the niche where Maria Callas' cremated remains once were interred at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Her ashes were removed and scattered over the Aegean Sea by a Greek dignitary. The plaque remains as a memorial to the legendary singer."
And, by the way, there is a crematorium at Pere Lachaise, which is presumably where Callas' body was cremated - it may have been that for which the German visitors were looking:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cr%C3%A9matorium_du_P%C3%A8re-Lachaise.jpg
I don't mean to pick on you - but your post on this subject already appears in a google search and I don't want any more inaccurate information about Callas circulating - there is plenty already. Regards!
Why such a really rude response? You’re now the keeper of the flame of Maria Callas on FR? Yeah, all those opera fans on FR.
By the way, I’m a Renata Tebaldi fan. Callas fans have always been weird.
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