I was listening to an NPR interview with Yonathon Levni, the founder of the Israel Wagner society. He was talking about having his performance of Wagner in Israel cancelled.
Read full article here.
He asked the question of why God would give such a despicable human being the ability to write such incredible music. Wagner's anti-semitism and the fondness of Hitler for his work are well known.
I asked myself the question, "Why bother?" Is doing a performance of this work in this place at this time worth the anger, controversy and hard feelings? One holocaust survivor said it would be "emotional torture." Why not just let it rest? How many people in Israel are wanting to listen to Wagner anyway? Is this using the power of music to unite or divide, to heal or to harm?
Let me state a disclaimer. In many ways I am not emotionally qualified to address the issues involved here. Some of my distant relatives were probably Polish Jews, but none that I know of were affected by the Holocaust. I don't know and can't know the emotional effect Wagner's music would have on a Holocaust survivor. I have also not personally read Wagner's writings on the subject.
But having said that, I do think that the performance would be a good thing. It would be at least a major irony, and at most a major victory, for a Jewish orchestra, under the direction of a Jewish conductor, to perform the music of Wagner in the nation of Israel. It would assert the power of music over hate. It would be a way for Jewish people to say, "We will claim art and beauty where we find it and in doing so, prove that Wagner's Judeaophobic rantings are quite simply, wrong."
The performance might not be comforting. It could produce conflicting emotions and inner turmoil. It could raise questions about history, philosophy, theology, and the nature of man. But isn't that what art does?
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