Richard Wagner’s Music Is Effectively Banned in Israel

Tablet Magazine
by David P. Goldman

The composer Richard Wagner was an anti-Semite, a German nationalist, and a genius. Performance of his music—masterworks like the “Ring” cycle and “Tristan und Isolde”—is effectively banned in Israel. Should it be?

Richard Wagner, the most repugnant of musical nationalists, has become an unlikely poster child for culturally progressive Israelis. The recurring controversy over the public performance of work by the Nazi Party’s favorite composer erupted again in late July when the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, led by the Austrian conductor Roberto Paternostro, performed a much-publicized Wagner program at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Wagner’s self-erected shrine and a pillar of the Nazi movement well before Hitler took power. (Paternostro received a standing ovation from the largely German audience, which understandably liked the idea of Jews playing Wagner.) Morbid ethnocentrism with overtones of nationalist extremism is acceptable to the Israeli left, it seems, as long as it isn’t Jewish.

Daniel Barenboim

Every so often a prominent musician makes a point of sneaking Wagner into a public concert in Israel. Zubin Mehta, the Indian-born conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, played a Wagner excerpt as an encore to a 1981 concert; Daniel Barenboim, conducting a German ensemble, did it again at the 2001 Jerusalem Festival. And in each case public opprobrium put Wagner’s scores back on the shelf. At the Bayreuth concert, some of the Israeli musicians explained that they never would perform Wagner in Israel but felt free to do so elsewhere. Performance of Wagner’s music is unofficially—but effectively—banned in Israel. But should it be? Mark Twain quipped that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. By the same token, banning Wagner’s music is a better idea than it sounds. Suppressing the performance of important musical works is not a small matter, though, and deserves careful thought rather than emotional reflex. Read more »