Wagner Explainer: Can We Separate the Man from His Music?
Monday, July 22, 2013 - 06:00 PM
Hans-Joachim Ketelson as Beckmesser and James Morris as Hans Sachs in 'Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg'
(Beatriz Schiller/Metropolitan Opera)
Major opera companies routinely stage the operas of Richard Wagner with hardly a mention of the composer's troublesome character traits: his virulent anti-Semitism, misogyny and narcissism. He was an undisputed musical genius and towering intellect, goes one theory, and his contemptible features have long been acknowledged and put to rest.
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To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, WQXR offers a week of music and commentary on his life and works.
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But in this, the composer's 200th anniversary year, discussions of Wagner's character – and his posthumous appropriation by the Nazis – have risen again to the forefront. Some believe these can lead to a fuller assessment of his legacy, and raise questions about whether one can separate the art from the artist.
We've asked several Wagner scholars, conductors and critics about how they approach these issues. Here are their responses.
Can we separate the man from the music?
James Conlon, music director, Los Angeles Opera: "I think you need to differentiate very clearly that artists are human beings and would like to think that because very often they create such beauty and such great works that they are just as beautiful human beings as their creations. But they’re not. In fact, if you look back throughout history it wouldn’t hold up that well, that if someone’s a great musician, they're a great human being. If they're a great human being, they’re a great musician. It actually isn’t so."
But wasn't Wagner's world view inextricably tied up with his music?
Gottfried Wagner, the great grandson of Richard Wagner, whose latest book, You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me, argues that anti-Semitism is to be found throughout his work: "Wagner's music is never abstract. I repeat: Wagner dominates all the details of the score. The more beautiful it sounds the more Wagner wants to also manipulate emotionally and intellectually his public. For me, his vision of a world without Jews is for us a very dangerous vision. It's not by chance that Hitler saw Wagner as his cultural and political idol. These topics are still a shadow for the discussion on Wagner. We cannot avoid them. We cannot educate students that the leitmotif has nothing to do with the content of the opera. It’s impossible. Wagner is always very powerfully manipulating the public." [from an interview with host Jeff Spurgeon]
What about the alleged Jewish caricatures in his operas - characters like Beckmesser and Alberich? Wouldn't Wagner have been more explicit about their intended associations?
Norman Lebrecht, cultural commentator, author, blogger on Artsjournal.com: "Let's look at the ways in which Wagner invested his own character and his own prejudices in the Ring. And one of those ways is with the dwarfs, which can easily be read as a quite loathsome caricature of Jews. Now Wagner was an avowed anti-Semite of a kind who knew how much he owed to certain Jews, and therefore had to remove any trace of it from his own outlook and from his own work. So he became the first cultural anti-Semite. In fact, he made anti-Semitism culturally respectable before the word anti-Semitism had already been coined. And some of that persists right the way through the Ring which makes the Ring a kind of epic of Arianism, which was very, very easy for Hitler to adopt." [from WNYC's Soundcheck]
Michael Beckerman, professor and chair of music at New York University and a specialist in 19th-century European music: "Wagner easily could have been explicit about Jewish characters if he meant them as such. What makes them so exciting to so many people is they can get beyond the anti-Semitism, which is front and center if you want to confront it, to the much broader picture that these characters represent. To say that Beckmesser is an anti-Semitic character is absolutely wrong. Now, music tends to be a matter of opinion." [from WQXR's Conducting Business]
Was Wagner so much worse than other cultural figures of Germany in the mid-19th century?
Anne Midgette, classical music critic, Washington Post: "Wagner was clearly an anti-Semite, yes, absolutely. I don’t, however, think that Wagner was the first and therefore the most culpable proponent of that kind of anti-Semitism. I think it is unfair or unfortunate that we tend to make Wagner the great scapegoat as somehow more abhorrent than other composers and more morally culpable because his statement was stronger. And that’s not to defend the anti-Semitism because – it’s not – but it’s not fair to give him the full blame for it, and there are plenty of other loathsome figures in music who we don’t scapegoat quite as gleefully." [from WNYC's Soundcheck]
How should Wagner be treated in Israel, which maintains an unwritten Wagner ban?
Daniel Barenboim, conductor – from My Life in Music: "In a democratic society like Israel there should be no room for taboos. The boycott on Wagner is very capricious – the Israel Philharmonic is not allowed to play Wagner, but you can buy Wagner records in Israel, you can hear Wagner on Israeli radio, you can see Wagner videos on Israeli television, you can go around Israel with cellular telphones that play 'The Ride of the Valkyries.' I do not believe that someone who sits at home in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem suffers because he knows that in another city someone is playing Wagner."
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles: "Perception is always more important than reality. Even if there was not a modicum of truth to the idea that [Wagner created anti-Semitic caricatures] that is the way it’s perceived. I think it’s just a question of good neighborliness, of not rubbing the wrong images in people’s faces. When you live in a country like Israel and when the Holocaust is still as fresh in the minds of so many people...we're not ready yet to make that clear distinction yet between Wagner and his music. We will be someday but I don’t believe we will be yet." [from WQXR's Conducting Business]
Is it impossible then to enjoy Wagner's music in an abstract way and put aside his personal flaws?
Gottfried Wagner: "Coming to peace does not mean for me that we repress the dark sides. For me, in the case of Wagner, you can only come to the side that yes, he is a very important figure. He's one of the central figures for opera in the 19th century. But we always have to listen with the fact that he has very dark sides, which means for us to be very aware of that. Many of the opera houses are still avoiding a more profound discussion, especially with the young people of today, who we want to attract to the opera house. We have to confront them with this reality. We should never avoid discussing all the dark sides."
Will Berger, producer, Metropolitan Opera; author of Wagner without Fear: "I want to use Wagner as a departure point for this urgent, urgent conversation about politics in art – not as an end point. Not that we only talk about it in Wagner. Why didn't anybody, when we were talking about Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Met, ask about the source material and who wrote it? You would find some distinct connections to movements like Action française, the French Fascist movement. It's never brought up. The lesson of Wagner should be we need to look at these issues in all art – not to say, 'as long as we know to put down Wagner, then we can get away with anything else.'"
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Comments [30]
The troubles that tear asunder the prospect of REAL "echt" WAGNERIAN PERFORMANCES are primarily based on the total lack of singers with squillo, ping, ringing "juicy', not dry secco , delivery, WAGNERIAN BARKING rather than legato full-throated singing, strained, forced and flat singing, unsupported, undersized and underpowered singing, WITHOUT impressive carrying power and with throaty or nasal ugly voice production. Today's news deals with deficits and declining support for the arts. Tandem to this predicament for the talented is the perception that the current situation will continue for a long time to come. Speaking specifically how this precludes the motivation for young operatic singers who must early on choosing their life's work, many have turned to Broadway or the business world. Nowadays Broadway musicals are out for show-stopping sensationalism with laser distractions, monster sets, acrobatic feats and space age technical projections and featuring dancing over singing. So, for the real thing opera singer, Broadway musicals, outside of Phantom of the Opera and an occasional Les Miserables there is little prospect of a sustainable career . The Wagner oeuvre has suffered the most. Husky physiques, witness the iconic John McCormack, do not offer similar size singing voices in power or stamina. Heroic voices like Melchior, Tamagno, Ruffo and the mature Caruso are nowhere on today's world class stages. Instead we suffer to hear miniscule, non-charismatic, non-distinctively memor able singing voices essaying roles far beyond their underpowered, thin not orotund, singing potentialities. I am a Wagnerian heldentenor, an opera composer [SHAKESPEARE and THE POLITICAL SHAKESPEARE] and director of The Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute, where all the Wagner and all the Shakespeare roles are taught as well as vocal technque for singing and declamation. www.WagnerOpera.com
You're welcome!
Thanks Carol.
I can understand the tribute to Wagner's music. He wrote great music. I think it is deplorable that you celebrate the man. He was a virile Anti-Semite & a hero of the monster Adolph Hitler. His music is banned in Israel although I think that is a mistake. Wagner would turn in his grave to know that his music gave great pleasure to Jews.
Can We Separate the Man from His Music?
The simple answer to this question is that in fact we do!
I think it a fair assumption that at least at the Metropolitan Opera, the audience is well aware of the anti-Semitic core of Wagner and that they are not accepting an anti-Semitic message by enjoying his works.
With the variety of media available today, e.g. print, radio, Internet links, such works can be presented with ample historical background available to the listener so that the anti-Semitic beliefs of Wagner may be highlighted while presenting these works.
Hi Concetta,
I don't know what you are doing wrong, but if you click on where it says "Playlists" at the top left of the website homepage, you can see the all of the listings for each program. There is a small heading at the beginning of each announcer's program that says "Discuss This Playlist" and if you click on that, you can find all the comments, and then at the bottom, you can make a comment. That's how I do it, anyway. And by the way, I enjoy reading your snarky comments, and yes, I think you are important; you help keep the discussion lively and interesting! Best wishes!
Ms.Carol, you mentioned that you read my comments on the playlist about Entrance of the Gods, I am never able to find my comments when I write them on the playlist. I must be doing something wrong, it reads discuss this playlist but I never find it. I really do enjoy reading my snarky remarks. Makes me feel important.
Best wishes
Great music, great genius, great programs WQXR. Thanks.!
It is so unfortunate and dissapoiting that in the US we cannot have a discussion about any form of art without infusing the political, racial and discriminatory nature of the artist. I totally agree with JohnJ from Philadelphia.
Fred, it is very painful. I am not Jewish but cannot forget those images I saw of the camps when I was very young. As for the anti-semitism of Shakespeare, the Merchant of Venice is singled out as being anti-semitic. What I find troubling about that play is that no one seems to mention that Shylock's daughter Jessica is joyful about her father's punishment. Carol, as for Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla, there is an enjoyable film called Thor. But what was missing in that film is that you do not hear that music when he throws the hammer. I was waiting for it. Cannot get Wagner out of my head. When I croak, want my family to play Siegfrieds Funeral Music and Va Pensiero at my funeral.
Best wishes to all for an interesting discussion,
If you're not Jewish, it's probably easier to overlook Wagner's extreme antisemitism. Shakespeare, Dickens and others can be just as troubling despite their genius.
Well said, Concetta! By the way, I read another one of your comments on the playlist about "Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla" and I have to say that it is a probably one of the things that got me to like Wagner also. It's a great piece to listen to while you are driving, especially as you are arriving at your destination!!!
Right now, I am listening to the live broadcast of the BBC Proms: Tchaikovsky's Symphony #4 - excellent!
I must disagree with you Bernie. My view is not simplistic. Must agree with Ms. Carol that QXR keeps raising this issue just to get more comments. I do not think that this is an attempt to start a kerfufell but somethimes it seems that way. Do not care about the character defects Wagner might have had. Just because Hitler loved Wagner's music, just remember that Wagner did not do these horrendous crimes. Hitler loved Gotterdamerung because of the end of the world it portrays. He was a crazy, evil bastard. Let us not paint Wagner with the same brush.
Bernie, I understand your point about "Birth of a Nation" (I'm something of a film buff myself), but I respectfully disagree with you that WQXR is "trying to confront these complexities." To me, it seems like they unrelentingly bring up this subject because they either: 1. dont' think much of Wagner and find that this is a good way to dismiss his music; 2. are just trying to get more comments on the website because they usually don't get too many and they know that with this subject they can get people to take sides; or 3. both!
Carol and Concetta - that's a very simplistic way to approach this. Wagner infused his music with anti-Semitic characters and themes. To tune that out isn't really possible. To me it's like the film "Birth of a Nation." You can appreciate the cinematic innovations that went into it - the camera work, the scenes, etc., but you also have to be aware of the racist themes that pervade its storyline. I actually applaud WQXR for trying to confront these complexities.
Concetta, you are absolutely correct! Allow us to just appreciate and enjoy Wagner's music and let it go at that.
Wagner was not a nice man. Who cares? The music is great. Yes Carol, here we go again. Mr. Lane, again fine historical info.
Please let us enjoy the music. I started to love his music when I was twelve years ago.
Did you know that the man who Wagner picked to conduct the world premiere of Parsifal was a friend of his who was not only Jewish, but the son of a Rabbi. For someone who hated Jews so much, you'd think he wouldn't want his beloved music sullied by Jewish hands.
Make of that what you will.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Lowe's was offering a doormat that featured the American flag. I found the idea of using our flag as an object on which to wipe one's feet so offensive that I decided to boycott Lowe's.
Similarly, one can find Wagner's anti-semitism so offensive as to cause one to boycott Wagner. But, I would allege that boycotting Wagner, and thereby depriving oneself of the beauty of his music, is a far greater loss to the boycotter than not shopping at Lowe's is to me. Lowe's is interchangeable; Wagner not so much.
And so, according to Mr. Lebrecht, dwarf = Jew. Who then is the real antisemite?
RICHARD WAGNER's innovations go beyond the use of his introductionj into the opera orchestra of brass, for instance, the Wagner tuba, and woodwind instruments invented for the their immediate use in his galactic projects. Wagner's chromatisim in TRISTAN to enhance the sensual, his use of swiftly changing meters, tempi, and extended or shortened phrase lengths to comport with the ever changing landscape and his mentally conceived synonymous sketching of leit motives, short leading melodies to indicate emotions, persons, things or concepts was extensively utilized throughout his oeuvre.
To JonJ: Well said!
The topic of Wagner's anti-semitism has been thoroughly discussed over the years, and in fact by now has almost developed into the subject that seemingly must take precedence over everything else every time his name comes up. But there are a few aspects that I don't think are often mentioned. Above all, we must remember that Hitler and the other Nazis were not music critics, or even very knowledgeable about music (most of them -- any more than most members of any public are). So I don't think it makes much sense to condemn Wagner's music (and I do believe that it can be separated in our minds from his personality) because some of it (not all by any means) appealed to the Nazis. We must also remember that they were great fans of Beethoven, especially the Ninth, because they considered it marvelous "Aryan music." Does that mean that we must condemn poor old Ludwig too?
Wagner was in every respect as much a revolutionary figure against monarchy, yet for a united Germany as was Verdi's compatriot Giuseppe Garibaldi for a united Italy. Wagner, as many leaders against an imperial status quo governing body, was imprisoned. His opera RIENZI, a man of the people, the historical last tribune of Rome was partially written, the overture especially exciting, while Wagner was in prison. The genius Mozart, like Wagner, depended on the financial support of royalty, yet pictured them for what they were, oppressive and the Counts and Dons freakish womanizers.
Gottfried Semper was the top architect in Germany during Wagner's lifetime. he was the architect of the Prinzregaten Opera House in Stuttgart, Germany with its sunken orchestra pit the same orchestral pit as he designed later on for the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth, Germany. The first Tristan Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld had a Lauritz Melchior physique, but neither the size of voice, nor the stamina of a Melchior, he dying shortly after his appearances in the Tristan premiere. The orchestra members of the original production of Tristan pretty unanimously, after 100 rehearsals declared "this will never be played as written, the composer overestimated the instrumentalists' capabilities." Just like before Roger Bannister no one broke the four minute time for running a mile, now there are many who have surpassed even his record time., so as now there are a FEW Wagnerian heldentenors capable of performing as "echt,"the real thing TRISTANS.
Wagner died at age 69 in Venezia on FEBRUARY 13 IN 1883. Quoting from CHARLES OSBORNE's book "WAGNER and his WORLD" copyrighted in 1977, "After the PARSIFAL performances at Bayreuth, Wagner and Cosima left for Venice, where they occupied part of the duke of Grazia's splendid fifteenth century Palazzo Vendramin. Wagner's heart was in weak condition, and the fights he was having with Cosima over a lady whom he wished to include in the following year's PARSIFAL performances must have seriously exacerbated his state of general ill-health. On 13 February 1883, after a slight heart attack, he retired to bed to work on an essay, "The Feminine Element in Humanity." While Cosima was at lunch, WAGNER'S bell began to ring violently. She hastened to him, and he died shortly afterwards in her arms."
HATE is the latest prominent ingredient in theatrical productions on stage and in film and in political campaigns and muck-raking publications and Tv and radio programming. HATE and VIOLENCE appeal to those seeking excitement from sensationalism and catastrophic explosive forms in nature as tsunamis. volcanic action, floods, snowstorms, dust storms and the like and bloody battles and car wrecks and contact sports such as wrestling which usually APPEARS, but ISN'T for real, yet satisfies the venal mindsets. Too many stage directors seeking self aggrandizement by doing the outrageous populate even our most respected opera houses and live theater establishments Although Wagner was an extreme radical antisemite, Nowadays productions reflecting the stage director's own political leanings tend to obscure the composer's intentions. TANNHAUSER nowhere expresses anything but a Roman Catholic concern for redemption which the Pope refused TANNHAUSER, but his virtuous lover Elizabeth by her sacrifice in her own death achieved for him. The composer Wagner had a Protestant mother and a Jewish father, LUDWIG GEYER, whom the child WAGNER adored. Nonetheless, his competitiveness and professional protocol approach ruled against his own reason and intellect and produced a contemptible blind scorn, a major blemish that thwarted a true view of others. The Germany of today views its ancestral NAZI predecessors as the villains they were.
The troubles that tear asunder the prospect of REAL echt WAGNERIAN PERFORMANCES are the total lack of singers with squillo, ping, ringing "juicy', not dry secco , delivery, WAGNERIAN BARKING rather than legato full-throated singing, strained, forced and flat singing, unsupported, undersized and underpowered singing, WITHOUT impressive carrying power and with throaty or nasal ugly voice production. Today's news deals with deficits and declining support for the arts. Tandem to this predicament for the talented is the perception that the current situation will continue for a long time to come. Speaking specifically how this precludes the motivation for young operatic singers who must early on choosing their life's work, many have turned to Broadway or the business world. Nowadays Broadway musicals are out for show-stopping sensationalism with laser distractions, monster sets, acrobatic feats and space age technical projections and featuring dancing over singing. So, for the real thing opera singer, Broadway musicals, outside of Phantom of the Opera and an occasional Les Miserables there is little prospect of a sustainable career. The Wagner oeuvre has suffered the most. Husky physiques, witness the iconic John McCormack, do not offer similar size singing voices in power or stamina. Heroic voices like Melchior, Tamagno, Ruffo and the mature Caruso are nowhere on today's world class stages. Instead we suffer to hear miniscule, non-charismatic, non-distinctively memorable singing voices essaying roles far beyond their underpowered, thin not orotund, singing potentialities. Why has the always controversial political or uniqueness for uniqueness's sake been the overriding context in which the Bayreuth Festival has ALWAYS manifested its presence back to the days when Hanslick, then Tschaikovsky and later Verdi found it an unfriendly atmosphere or decried its "lack of melody (sic !)?" The daughters of Wolfgang Wagner like their dad have managed to incur the wrath of others either more conservative or radical in their concepts of the evolving Wagner music drama production values/concepts. It is an eviscerating condition that feeds upon confrontation rather than productive aesthetics.
Here we go again...
The incandescent beauty and intoxicating spirituality are so transformational in Wagner's oeuvre that any religious belief may be accommodated and synthesized to replicate the sense of selfless empathy for the welfare of others that the sacrificed UNICO represents to us all. That may explain why so many famous JEWISH singers GEORGE LONDON, RICHARD TAUBER, HERMANN JADLOWKER, MELANIE KURT, FRIEDRICH SCHORR, ALEXANDER KIPNIS, EMANUEL LIST, JONAS KAUFMANN, OTTILIE METZGER, LILLI LEHMANN, HERMANN WEIL, DESZO ERNSTER, HERTA GLAZ, MARGARETE MATZENAUER, SOPHIE BRASLAU, WALTER OLITZKY, GERHARD PECHNER, ESTELLE LIEBLING, MONA PAULEE, GUNTHER TREPTOW, PAULA LENCHNER, ALMA GLUCK, ADOLF ROBINSON, IRENE JESSNER, MAX BLOCH, ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK, HERMANN SCHRAMM, SIEGFRIED JERUSALEM, PAUL KALISCH, ETC], conductors LEONARD BERNSTEIN, JAMES LEVINE, BRUNO WALTER, ALFRED HERTZ, DANIEL BARENBOIM, GEORG SOLTI, WALTER AND LEOPOLD DAMROSCH, ARTUR RODZINSKY, RICHARD FRANK GOLDMAN AND HIS FATHER THE FOUNDER OF THE GOLDMAN BAND THAT PERFORMED BRASS INSTRUMENT VERSIONS OF THE WAGNER "REP," FRITZ REINER, SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, FABIEN SEVITSKY, ERICH LEINSDORF, HERMANN LEVI, ETC. and stage directors HERBERT GRAF AND LEOPOLD SACHSE dedicated the fullest portion of their careers to performing Wagner's music dramas.
One's personality should not be invoked when considering the theater or works of art. Wagner was an antisemite as was Mascagni, Richard Strauss and members of Wagner's own family. Winifred Wagner-- the wife of Wagner's son Siegfried, a composer and conductor in his own right and, according to my voice teacher Met Opera legendary bass Alexander Kipnis who sang Gurnemanz at Bayreuth under Siegfried's direction SIEGFRIED WAGNER WAS NO ANTISEMITE--supplied the funds and stationery for HITLER's wriiting his MEIN KAMPF in prison. Beethoven was habitually irritant, etc. Let's concentrate on the masterworks, not the monsters that may have created them. MUSEUMS HAVE A VALUE, named after the Muse of the Arts, it is significant to save what might be a masterpiece, yet leave room FOR THE LIVING CREATORS in music, the fine arts, architecture, dance and literature. The living composers, lyricists, painters, sculptors, dancers and authors depend upon the funding from purchases of their oeuvre as tickets, book sales or actual financial support. Priority to conserve should not rule out support for modern points of view and expression of all aspects of modern life including political and domestic family values.
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