Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Since I'm not an Israeli and have no desire to visit, whether Wagner
>gets played live or not doesn't affect me personally.

Probably your presence would not be missed as you seem to be on the
other side and not trying to see the problem as a whole.

>The de facto ban, however, certainly doesn't make that society any
>more attractive to me than, say, Pat Robertson's World o' Homophobia.

This is an amazing comparison.  Playing Wagner to an audience which
did not come to hear it is sort of like rape.  The de facto ban is out
of respect to survivors who still are alive.  No one is hurt in the way
that Mr. Robertson might be hurting some persons.  This is an extreme
comparison in my view.  And of course anyone can have CDs or DVDs of
Wagner.  I assure you that there is no such censorship.

>The concert in Ramallah is a gesture, but an important one: a gift that
>recognizes the humanity of the other.

One not reciprocated, Steve, that is the thrust of what I have to say.

>If, to take a cliche, Beethoven's Ninth has no consequence in the world
>(and surely so far it has had no practical political consequence), is
>it therefore, practically speaking, useless?  After all, as Auden once
>wrote: "Poetry makes nothing happen."

You are getting a little mystical for me.  But my absolute perfect Fidelio
is the one conducted by Boehm in Feb., 1944 Vienna.

Yoel