And on the subject of Wagner, which I note has elicited many postings, I
recently had a letter in the Los Angeles Times on his anti-Semitism, which
follows:
It is scarcely news at this time to anyone familiar with Richard
Wagner's music that, as his great-grandson Gottfried Wagner tells
us in his new book "Twilight of the Wagners", Wagner was a noted
anti-Semite. He was not only a prolific composer, but a prolific
writer as well, noted for his essays attacking Jews and Judaism, most
notably Judaism in Music. Nor is it news that his wife, Cosima, and
their children shared these anti-Semitic views; the publication of
Cosima's diaries gave far more information on this that Gottfried
could ever suggest, and the racist writings of Wagner's son-in-law
Houston Stewart Chamberlain are well known. Adolph Hitler's devotion
to Wagner's music is also well known, as is the fact that Bayreuth
became a Nazi shrine with the active approval of the Wagner family
and that Wagner's music came to be associated with the Nazis..
Nor is it a novel theory that Wagner's music dramas like The Ring
incorporate his anti-Semitic views; 30 years ago, Robert Gutman, in
his book Richard Wagner, the Man, His Mind and His Music set forth
this same view in great detail. But it is only a theory, and one
that has most recently been challenged by Jacob Katz of the Leo Baeck
Institute in Jerusalem in his 1986 book The Darker Side of Genius:
Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism. Katz is well known for his 1980 book
on the history of anti-Semitism, From Prejudice to Destruction.
Katz presents a thorough study of the role that anti-Semitism played
in the life of Wagner, and discusses at length the question of whether
his anti-Jewish phobias left traces in his artistic creations. Katz
notes that Hitler and the Nazis appropriated Wagner's works as a
prophetic anticipation of their own world view, and that post-war
critics have followed suit by seeing Wagner's anti-Semitism as the
key to understanding his art. Gottfried obviously belongs to this
group. But as Katz points out, "In fact, without forced speculation,
very little in the artistic work of Wagner can be related to his
attitude toward Jews and Judaism". In short, Wagner's music is
untainted by his anti-Semitism.
My wife and I have seen some two-dozen complete performances of The
Ring, along with performances of all the other major Wagner operas.
We confess to being Jewish Wagnerites, repelled by the man but seduced
by his art, fully aware of his anti-Semitism, but not burdening him
with the horrible deeds of Hitler.
Mark Swed (Times music critic) seems to have a problem with Wagner
in his 7 July review of the Domingo "Parsifal" documentary. As in
his review of the SFO Ring, he continues to rely on Robert Gutman,
who denigrates Wagner as an unsurpassed force for evil, and, as Swed
notes, sees Parsifal as having nothing to do with Christianity, but
only with racial purity of Aryans; in short, a blueprint for Hitler.
Gutman himself has written that "Parsifal is not only un-Christian,
it is anti-Christian. Nietzche ... recognized the opera as 'a work
of malice...an outrage on morality'". But Nietzche regarded Parsifal
as bad because it was Christian, not because it was anti-Christian.
Nietzche wrote "I condemn Christianity....To me it is the extremest
thinkable form of corruption." After reading the full text of Parsifal,
he wrote that Wagner had betrayed him by this work of Christianity, and
that Wagner "a decaying and despairing decadent, suddenly sank down,
helpless and broken before the Christian cross". Far from supporting
Gutman, Nietzche directly contradicts him. So do most other critics.
Certainly Parsifal has a message; it is about the redemptive power
of compassionate love, which is a common theme in most of Wagner's
music dramas, and is told from a Christian frame of reference, tinged
with Schopenhauer and Buddhism. As Lucy Beckett has written in her
book, Parsifal: "Parsifal becomes the representative man that
Christianity declares anyone potentially to be: a sinful man redeemed
by Christ who can and should at the same time disclose the reality
of Christ to others". One does not have to be a Christian to appreciate
the beautiful, sincere, and inspiring religiosity of the work and
its call for compassionate love.
As to Syberberg's Parsifal film and Swed's puzzlement over the "sex
change", this is an attempt to show the feminine-masculine duality
of human nature within one person. At the beginning of the film, a
boy and girl sit together, male and female in balance, but he gets
up and leaves for adventures; his female half remains behind or
suppressed. His epiphany of understanding and compassion in the duet
with Kundry allows his female half to emerge. At the works conclusion,
the boy and girl are shown reunited as one as part of the redemptive
process. It is one of the most touching scenes in the film.
Carl Pearlston
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