Klarinet Archive - Posting 000100.txt from 2007/05
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?sarah=20elbaz?=" <sarah@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] SV: Wagner
Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 14:21:31 -0400
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Paolo Leva <paolo.leva@-----.se>
> Subject: [kl] SV: Wagner
> Sent: 13 May '07 08:53
>
> IMHO the complexity of Wagner's Ring really cannot be
> reduced to "good characters" against the "evil ones".
> There are no characters in the ring that are simply
> good and others that are simply bad. I wonder whether
> Wagner had any interest at all in concepts like "good"
> and "bad", I believe he did not.
>
> This kind of good/bad classification is a
> simplification that might be appropriate for Disney,
> Tolkien and much of nowadays "action movies" crap, not
> for Wagner. The complexity of both characters and
> music is much greater than that. The complexity
> further increase when you put text and music together,
> since often they tell different, even opposite things.
>
> For instance to see Siegfried as the "good" one
> prevailing against Mime the "bad" one is to extract
> one episode and choose to ignore the context.
> Unfortunately this is exactly the simplification done
> by the nazi to be able to use the Ring in their
> propaganda. I believe and hope that it is now time to
> move away from that simplification.
>
> The Wagner of the ring is in many respect the same
> person that earlier wrote Tannhäuser and later wrote
> Parsifal, a man deeply involved to understand the
> human condition, its suffering, its fall and its way
> to redemption.
>
> The mix of mythologies (German and other) was the tool
> he chose to deliver his message and to represent the
> human mind. It was not THE message.
>
> I myself found the book of Robert Donington "Wagner's
> Ring and its symbol" quite a stimulating reading to
> catch this complexity, but most of all I recommend
> people wondering about antisemitism in Wagner's ring
> to go and see the whole ring with an open mind.
>
> Paolo
Paolo,
I think that there is a big misunderstanding here. The debat " To Wagner or not to Wagner"
has nothing to do with his music, it is about the abuse of Wagner's music by the Nazis.
The boycott started in Israel in 1952. Yasha Heifetz played Richard Strauss and after the concert
someone attact him with an hammer. Only then people started to understand that the surviviors
can not hear this music and the Israel Phil decided not to play Wagner and Strauss.
Wagner was a greart composer, there is no argument about that. Dan Lesson can write anything about Wagner
but when he turns on the television and watches hundreds of advertisements, he praises
Wagner. After all , what is an advertisement if not a leitmotiv?.
Tony and I had a long discussion about that when he was in Israel last December. I told him that
the boycott against Wagner's music can not stop because for so many people the holocaust
is not over yet. There are people among us who have no idea when and where they were born,
who are their parents and what is their name. People with second and third generation syndrom
can not affoerd the luxury of such debats because they need all the energy in the world to get up
in the morning. I have nothing against Wagner's music , but since Israel is a SHELTER and not just another
state the priorities here are different.
If we want to to have a serious discussion about antisemitism, I think that we should face some more
difficult questions.
For example: Amazon .com . Is there any one on this list who didn't buy or sell books and CD's
through Amazon? And if I tell you that Amazon sells more copies of the" Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
then the Bible and they refuse to stop spreading this poison because of the profit they make from this book, would you still buy ans sell through Amazon?
I would love to get an answer to this question.
Sarah Elbaz
>
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