Klarinet Archive - Posting 000390.txt from 2004/01

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:31:06 -0500

Joseph Wakeling wrote:

> << But, what if Wagner had been alive and writing the music fresh in 1939,
> or 2004? >>
>
> Well, part of the problem with Wagner is that he didn't just write music.
> He wrote a lot of prose as well, and this is really virulently
> anti-semitic---horrifyingly so. And then you have the Nazis taking up his
> music as the supreme example of German art.
>
> But if Wagner had written only the music, not the words, would anyone have
> realised that there were anti-semitic stereotypes in his operas? Barenboim
> makes a good point, which is that if Wagner really had wanted to express his
> anti-semitic views in his operas, he would have done so explicitly and
> created a Jewish character. The fact that he didn't ... ?
>
> -- Joe
>

Excellent point Joe, but he very much did create Jewish characters in
his operas, but they were never identified as that. It is their
behavior and horrid personal charactertics (that Wagner believed all
Jews had) which identify them as Jews. In fact, Wagner once almost
himself into his opera by describing the character Mime with his own
physical features. But when he realized what he was doing, he abandoned
that. I have the text of his original description of Mime and it is
very much a Jewish stereotype.

Dan
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--
Dan Leeson
leeson0@-----.net

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