Jewish maestro breaks Wagner taboo

Published on Tuesday 26 July 2011 16:07

AN ISRAELI orchestra played its way into history by performing a piece by Richard Wagner - Adolf Hitler's favourite composer - at the Bayreuth Festival yesterday.

The piece, the Siegfried Idyll, is a symphonic poem lasting 20 minutes, which Wagner composed for second wife Cosima after son Siegfried's 1869 birth.

But the fact that it was played at all at what became a shrine to Nazism has scandalised many Jews for whom Wagner will forever be tainted by the spell he wove over Hitler.

Wagner was a hero of the Nazi leader who nurtured his own theories of German greatness and antisemitism through his sturm und drang operas. He also openly admired and drew inspiration from Wagner's anti-Jewish essays which raged against the "corruption" of the "German spirit" by Jews.

Hitler became chief patron of the Bayreuth Festival, founded by Wagner in 1876 and still the main celebration of his works.

Every summer, from 1933 to 1939, Hitler attended it, making the Wagner estate - Wahnfried - his second home.

Since the Second World War ended his music has been, despite one controversial concert, taboo in Israel in a mark of respect to the Holocaust survivors who built the state. The decision to break this taboo at the place Hitler worshipped his idol has triggered a national debate.

"A disgraceful abandonment of solidarity with those who suffered at the hand of the Nazis, " said Elan Steinberg, deputy head of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants. "Nobody suggests Wagner's music not be played. But the Jewish refusal to do so was a powerful message of indignation to the world that exposed Wagner's odious antisemitic ideas and those who championed them."

The Israel Chamber Orchestra under conductor Roberto Paternostro decided to play the composition after arriving in Germany at the weekend. Mr Paternostro, whose mother survived the Holocaust which claimed six million lives, said it was time to "separate Wagner's worldview from his music".

He added: "Wagner's ideology and antisemitism was terrible, but on the other hand he was a great composer. The aim is, in the year 2011, to divide the man from his art."

Mr Paternostro shares a "great friendship" with Katharina Wagner, Richard's great-granddaughter and co-director of the festival. The concert also featured music from Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler; Jewish composers both whose works were banned during the 12 years of Nazi rule as "degenerate art".

But it is not the first Wagner performance by an Israeli orchestra. That was in 2001 when Daniel Barenboim conducted a piece from Tristan and Isolde, sparking a walkout in Jersualem.