Together wherever we go
La Cieca must say that, for a chick, Katharina Wagner sure doesn’t talk much. But perhaps her reticence is something of a blessing, since it prevents her from spouting such facile generalizations as “…’Die Meistersinger,’ Hitler’s favorite Wagner opera.”
Your doyenne has two problems with this kind of talk—Anthony Tommasini‘s, she means, not Katharina’s: the Bayreuth doyette, as pointed out before, doesn’t say much, but what she does say is pretty level-headed if hardly revelatory.
Now, first of La Cieca’s Tommasini-issues (you see, she’s already thinking in German) is the factual question of what exactly was “Hitler’s favorite Wagner opera.” Was it indeed Meistersinger? Well, some think so, yes, mostly critics writing in English. But not everyone agrees. Some say it was Rienzi the Führer most favored, in fact, Katharina herself agrees with that idea. Other sources (you can look these up yourself) suggest Lohengrin, Parsifal or even Tristan und Isolde.
So I think the only thing that’s really safe to say is that Hitler was not a huge fanboy of Das Liebesverbot, though La Cieca as always stands ready to be contradicted on that point. But the “favorite” might be one of several, with the question further complicated by the “fact” that Hitler’s real Lieblingsopern were the non-Wagnerian works Tiefland and Die Lustige Witwe.
So anyway, just for the sake of the argument, let’s say we have some solid documentation that Hitler said at some point or another that Meistersinger was his favorite opera. And…? What’s the relevance here? We are talking about a complicated matter of personal (and certainly not entirely aesthetic) taste here, and then assigning that taste, what, a strong political and moral meaning? Or is there a suggestion that there is something inherently insidious in Meistersinger (Rienzi, Lohengrin, Die Lustige Witwe) that, what, appealed to Hitler’s depravity, enhanced it, inspired it?
Or is it just one of those non sequiturs that journalists occasionally throw in just to keep the reader interested? (“Among Michelle Obama‘s closest chums in that third grade class were Lady Gaga and Kim Jong-Il?”) Or is it the guilt-by-verbal-proximity Godwinning so favored by the likes of Manuela Hoelterhoff both in print and in conversation? (The answer to that question, La Cieca thinks, is probably the former: Tommasini is simply not the Evil Genius type.)
Its just getting ridiculous at this point. I am officially *over* the German holocaust as the singular reference point for all evil committed in the history of the world. To the posters who wondered what Stalin or Mussolini’s favorite operas were, exactly. But lets leave Europe. Did the leaders of world war II japan enjoy the arts or opera?
It is unfortunate that Wagner lived in such close proximity to Hitler that it makes it easier for intellectually lazy people to retroactively implicate him in Hitler’s particular version of white supremacy as governing strategy. But why is it that these critics never have a word for 17th-18th century composers who may have been favored by European monarchs as they enacted genocidal labor policies in “New World” colonies against indigenous people and then imported Africans? Particularly those composers who produced commissioned works that propagandized for the Crown and in doing so were a much greater part of the cultural bulwarks that supported European colonialism around the globe.
But, of course, this is whats so problematic about Western society’s myopic focus on the holocaust. By isolating the German holocaust as the ONE unforgiveable sin of Western society, we actually white wash and forgive other sins that went on longer (African chattel slavery) killed more people (Indigenous extermination) effected more lives (the subjugation of women) and on and on. Assuming these people actually care about the role opera plays in bolstering up offensive ideologies (and I don’t think they do at all) then shouldn’t they be concerned that all the effort spent scouring Wagner’s scores and plots allows us to ignore offensive ideologies in other works?
When it comes to history, amalgams are easy and have popular appeal, whereas insight and empathy are difficult.
Obama sucks. What opera should we assign to him?
Does Job have an opera yet?
So then what would be Barack and Michelle Obama’s favorite opera? Treemonisha? Porgy and Bess? Otello?
BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The fuck?
Unacceptable, jat.
Boo! Hiss!
Besides, the correct answer is DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN because two of the main characters are Barak and his lovely wife Michelle.
Tommasini once responded to criticism that his reviews were becoming light-weight, e.g., focusing more on Voigt’s weight loss than on her singing, by saying that the NYT is a generalist paper for a wide public, not a specialist publication like Opera News, and he adjusted his writing accordingly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some newspaper critics are pressured by their editors to make their reviews appeal to more people by throwing in catchy items like Hitler’s favorite opera or dragging up that 20 year old moniker “Frankly Worse than Most” as Bernheimer recently did. It’s disappointing to those of us passionate about the artist, but considering declining readership of newspapers and the decreasing prominence of classical music compared to 50 years ago, not surprising.
The NY Times has a history of censoring or “re-assigning” critics. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of Broadway critic in the 80′s who was reassigned because of his contiunous negative and some cases ruinous reviews of Broadway shows. The big time Broadway producers got together to complain and remind the NY Times powers that be that they were the major advertisers in the Arts section and that his reviews were so vicious and detrimental to the economy of Broadway that something needed to be done. As I am having a senior moment at the tender age of 41; I am sure that one our posters here will remind me of that critcs name.
I long for the time (which I was never a part of) when you could open up several newspapers in a major city and see many well-informed thought out reviews. A time when classical music/opera could take severe critisism and that there was an “educated” audience who could glean and form their own opinions from those reviews. Boosterism seems to be rule of the day. Tommasini certainly does a good job of that and reflects the dumbed-down standards in journalism today. He does his job well: he gives us the 15 second bite in print, peeks interests and knows where his bread is buttered. Do I agree or respect him as a critique? No, but it’s just the way the world works these days.
ON – I think that you made an excellent point regarding our attitude and need to use the Holocaust as a catch-all guilty Western experience. The Arts from the beginning have pretty much been supported, commisioned and fosterd by some of the biggest despots, tyrants and racists in history. I would argue that Wagners view of the Jews was pretty much the standard thought/belief of Europeans/Westerneres until it became politically incorrect to be anti-Semetic. Wagners real problem is that he actually wrote what he thought down for posterity. I wonder what Shakespeare’s view on the “Jewish Problem” were? A pound of flesh, anyone? I know that I am going to be absolutely vilified for saying this but, Wagner is one of the pinnacles of Western Art and THE German composer to end all composers (arguably). So why would Hitler not worship him and his music? Ummm, his thing was all about Teutonic dominance and celebration of all things German. I worship and adore Wagner’s music too, but does that make Wagner a different man just because a gay, ultra-liberal, African-American is a fan? One of the most tiresome things about Tommasini (and our dear hostess has pointed this out) is that his statement about Hitler adds nothing to his musings on Meistersinger and most of us are really sick of hearing that connection made again and again.
The name of that critic is Frank Rich. The theatrical community did not force him out; instead he chose to become a political columnist, presumably because politics offered him more scope than theater did. He remains there as one of the paper’s most influential writers—in fact, one of the most powerful columnists in the country. No doubt the Times received complaints and even threats throughout his tenure as critic from theater producers. But he was “reassigned” of his own volition.
It may help that if a Broadway show doesn’t take out ads in the Times, it can’t hope to attract an audience. But the paper stuck by him.
Thank you for clearing up my misinterpretation of the matter Maven. Just goes to show that getting scuttlebutt decades later from one of the producers involved in the campaign to oust him isn’t always the best of sources.
Frank Rich is a genius.
To be pedantic, one needs to distinguish between Hitler’s preferences and those of the Nazi regime. The regime loved Meistersinger. It fitted well with the regime’s propaganda themes. There were lots of productions throughout the Nazi period (while Parsifal was initially confined to Bayreuth and then banned altogether and The Ring banned from 1943 on). Hitler, from his table talk, seems to have thought Tristan the height of Wagner’s achievement, because he was in love with Mathilde Wesendonck when he wrote it (no-one ever accused Hitler of being a music critic).
I’ve got late-night fussbudgetry.
“Peek” (as a verb) means to eye surreptitiously.
“Peak” (as a verb) means to reach its highest point.
“Pique” (as a verb) means to prick or stimulate.
Hence, one’s interest is “piqued,” unless it climaxes or is looked at.
. . . and “a lot” is two words.
. . . and “anyway” has no s on the end.
“… and ‘anyway’ has no s on the end.”
You’re right. It has a “z”.
Anyway – if you peek at Parterre you might be piqued by the picaresque Betsy_Ann_Bobolink, who sometimes picks at p*icks a lot, but is always the peak of perfection, not to mention the pick of the crop. She is picky, but always a pick-me-up, sober or pickled. What a picture!
Hi Beautiful, what are you doing up? My excuse is that I’m drunk.
Mine is that it is 12.11 pm in London. GO TO BED!!!
My interest piqued as I peeked at his peaking prick.
Very elegant – brevity is the soul of wit!
I am just watching this doc by Stephen Fry on Wagner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2yoGgZQZS0 Interesting to see how this uber-Englishman explains his Wagner devotion to his countrymen. Already in the first installment Wagner’s involvement with the 1848 uprising gets a mention, as does his anti-snobbishness and his populist (proto-democratic?) views of the performing of opera (of the latter I was unaware). OK, here goes my sunny afternoon.
Wasn’t Hitler also a fan of Shakespeare? and Jesus?
Who cares?
Also, I cannot speak to the production, of course (ten years ago, at 13, I didn’t even know about Bayreuth, hehe), but does AT’s assessment of the final scene and his idea of what is “essential” to certain characterizations seem a little dogmatic to anyone else? I mean, all the not-unlikely irrelevant Regie crap aside, considering this is an art of interpretation (as has been discussed here before), this last section seems a little narrow-minded/too proscriptive, to me… Really, it’s just a question – I mean, I’m not super conversant with the finer points of the text of Die Meistersinger, so maybe I’m missing something, and, maybe I’m just way out in the deep end – I didn’t have a problem with the lack of candles in Tosca, after all…. *sigh*
Apart from the Hitler-Meistersinger matter, I wonder whether Tommasini understood what he was seeing on stage. I saw this production in 2008 and unless KW changed a lot in the last two seasons, AT seems not to notice that the Meistersingers are visual, not vocal, artists. He sees the statues of Beethoven, Wagner, Goethe, and Mozart at the end of act 1, but doesn’t notice that the statue of Wagner turns into a urinal (à la Marcel Duchamp). Beckmesser is the hero in this production. His prize song in act 3 is not “a botched piece of performance art involving a mound of dirt and a naked man” but the work of a brilliant creator—there are two mounds of dirt from which he creates a man and a woman—laughed off the stage by the philistine Nurembergers. Walther produces an insipid tableau vivant of sixteenth-century figures during his prize song and is rewarded with a giant check presented TV-contest style. KW subverts her great grandfather’s opera in every way she can and intends to provoke the audience, as she clearly states, “I never start to direct by thinking about making a provocation to the audience”—reading “always” for “never.” So “Wagner lovers who come to Bayreuth always react negatively, at least at first, to a new interpretation of a canonical work.” The audience booed this production in 2007; the audience booed KW when she took her bows in 2008 (she waved and flashed a huge smile); and the audience booed when she took her bows this year. I doubt that the audience in the next two years will be reconciled to this production the way it was to the 1976 Ring. What will KW make of Tristan?
Hitler’s favorite opera was Parsifal, not Meistersinger, a “comedy” that is not funny as we all know, because Wagner couldn’t come up with jokes or any humorous discourse even if his life depended on it, the same way he couldn’t write for the human voice.
Parsifal an ode to Arianism, a cause for obvious delight for Hitler’s fanaticism, hatred and zealotry. And if he were alive today Hitler would be proud of Jews in fact, as much he hated them, since Israel is incinerating as many Palestinians as Germany did Jews back in the 30s and 40s. Israel is outdoing Hitler.
Let’s never forget, however, that opera is an Italian word from Latin (“a work,” plural of opus) and an Italian creation. Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century with Jacopo Peri’s lost Dafne, produced in Florence around 1597.
All German, French, English and (god forbid) Yiddish copies of operas are just that, copies and should be ultimately dismissed.
All German, French, English and (god forbid) Yiddish copies of operas are just that, copies and should be ultimately dismissed.
I’ve seen a lot of nonsense on this site in the past, but this really takes the cake. Since when does one form of nationalist essentialism (Wagner’s) merit another (Ardath_Bey’s)?
Indiana, thank you!
Even Naughty Marietta?
A present for ardath_bey:
???????
…. oops, for “?????” read “Shalom!”
This is not only highly offensive (I’m Jewish), but egregious as well. I wonder what Salamone Rossi (born 1570) and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, not to mention Mendelssohn, would make of this.
Or Karl Goldmark? Or Moishe Vainberg? Or Alberto Franchetti? Or Arnold Schoenberg?
Someone’s not getting an invitation to the MTT holiday party this year…
ardath_bey says:
” And if he were alive today Hitler would be proud of Jews in fact, as much he hated them, since Israel is incinerating as many Palestinians as Germany did Jews back in the 30s and 40s. Israel is outdoing Hitler.”
I have long been critical of Israeli foreign policy and its reflex American defenders, but when I read historically ignorant outright untruths like this I am tempted to agree with those tiresome neo-Cons who diagnose a return of “fashionable” ant0-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism. It’s resonating in the queer and leftie communities where I spend my time, alas.
It hurts to agree in any particular with neo-Cons.
ardath_bey: I am not Jewish. But , your comments remind me when I was young kid witnessing often ‘a completely dirty, smelly mad raving lunatic woman who kept ‘having a fixated mental shit’ ; in front of everybody in the local shopping center. She would go from shop to stop and in front of the staff and customers go into her loud twisted spiel about Jewish people. The ‘logic’ she displayed, the associations she drew………I have to ask “Was she your grandmother and similarly groomed your utterances?” For I am hearing parts of the the same rabid identical ‘mental- mush spew’ from you. Your attempt at being ‘well read chic’ is transparently pathetic.
The best analysis I ever read of Wagner was one by an American Psychiatrist who dabbled in forensic research about composers behavior , whilst gathering associated information on medical conditions they may have had.In many cases he was able to with modern medical knowledge to establish what some composers really died of, and not the traditional held view. It was when he came to their psychological make up , it got interesting. In Wagner’s case, he opened up all the signposts both from Wagner’s writings and studying un-obvious occurring symbols in his operas. Wagner was a complete ‘sickie’. Just plough through his auto biography, the tomes of Cosima’s Diaries ….and one is faced by self generated bullshit and self delusion by people justifying their own compartmentalized existence.