County supervisor revives debate over Wagner's 'Ring'

 

The worlds of opera and local politics collided this week over Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, re-igniting a fierce debate about the brilliant German composer known for his marvelous music and repugnant racism.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich issued a statement Tuesday calling for an overhaul of the 2010 Ring Festival Los Angeles, a citywide arts celebration that will spotlight Wagner’s 19th century, four-opera “The Ring of the Nibelung.” 

In the statement, Antonovich emphasized Wagner’s well-known anti-Semitic views and said that the festival would be “an affront to those who have suffered or have been impacted by the horrors” of the Nazis.

 Next week, he will ask the county board to send a letter to Los Angeles Opera, which is producing Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, requesting it  shift the festival’s focus from Wagner to featuring other classical composers. 

Antonovich’s action prompted vehement responses on both sides of the debate. Some accused L.A. Opera and other arts institutions involved with the festival of glorifying a racist while others labeled the supervisor’s suggested changes a form of censorship.

“An analogy would be that if we had a book fair, you wouldn’t put Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ as the focus,” said Antonovich in an interview Wednesday. “What we’re asking for is a balance and that the festival broaden its theme.” 

Antonovich, who represents the 5th District, which covers much of northern Los Angeles County, suggested that the festival incorporate other composers such as Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Schubert, Schumann, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn.

Barry Sanders, the leader of the Ring Festival and an L.A. Opera board member, said “there has never been an effort to glorify Wagner the man, but rather to bring his operas in their full context to the people.”
He added that “it would be abhorrent to exert creative censorship on the festival.”

Set to begin in the spring of 2010, the festival will focus on L.A. Opera’s first-ever staging of all four operas in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It will also feature the participation of more than 50 arts institutions around Los Angeles that will produce exhibitions, concerts and educational programming related to Wagner and his music.

Among the participating institutions are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the L.A. Philharmonic.

As part of the festival, L.A. Opera is hosting symposiums dedicated to discussing Wagner’s anti-Semitic writings and personal views. “Wagner was himself dramatically anti-Semitic, but his music is not and there is no reason to censor his music or fail to address his art because of his personal beliefs,” said Kenneth Reinhard, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA , who will lead one of the discussions.

L.A. Opera’s General Director Plácido Domingo, who spearheaded the festival, said in a statement that the “Ring” “invites exactly this sort of intensive analysis and discussion, and the festival will provide many different forums for gaining insights into the past and exploring moral issues."

But people opposed to the festival argue that Wagner’s personal life and music are inseparable and that the festival’s effort to compartmentalize his racist beliefs is a fundamentally invalid approach.

“The man and the music are one,” said Carie Delmar, who runs a blog devoted to protesting the festival. She said that anti-Semitic themes can be found throughout Wagner’s works, and that the characters of Alberich and Mime in the “Ring” are thinly veiled Jewish caricatures.

“This festival is Wagner idolatry to the hilt,” Delmar said. “There are influential Jewish people supporting Ring Festival L.A. and I think they have forgotten their heritage as Jews.”

In recent years, Wagner’s “Ring” cycle has been presented by a number of opera companies in the U.S. and around the world without sparking major protests. 

L.A. Opera is spending $32 million to produce the “Ring” cycle, and the first two installments premiered earlier this year. The Ring Festival is a separate but related organization whose task is to coordinate and market the various “Ring”-related activities around the city. The promotional budget for the festival is in the “several hundred thousands,” according to festival leaders.

James Conlon, L.A. Opera’s music director, has been one of the company’s biggest champions of Wagner, but he has also devoted considerable efforts to launching the Recovered Voices series, dedicated to resurrecting operas that were suppressed during the Nazi regime.

In various interviews, arts leaders around L.A. reiterated their commitment to the festival. 

“The ‘Ring’ is a stunning work of art and it contains positive humanistic themes,” said Deborah Borda, the president of the L.A. Philharmonic. “It has been performed for well over a hundred years. If something is truly evil art, it wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

-- David Ng

Photo: L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[chi]

so...we should ban Volkswagens from Los Angeles? and maybe...the Dodgers should be gotten rid of because Major League Baseball was such a racist league...and...what else...um...the Golden Gate Bridge should be shut down and destroyed because they used Chinese immigrants in slave labor conditions...and oh, wait, the Disney Music Hall. that Walt Disney was sure a nice guy, huh? he loved the Jewish, didn't he? ya morons.

[Ron Boudreaux]

Are you kidding me? Instead of going after Wagner this guy should be trying to help solve the states massive budget problem. Will these politicians do anything to get there names out there? Long after Antonovich is gone Wagner's music will be going strong. if we start going down the road of censorship where does it end? Shouldn't' a free society give its citizens the right to choose? This kind of thinking leads to fewer books in the library, fewer pieces in the museums, telling teachers what they can teach and on and on. Before long our freedom has taken. Antonovich has the right to voice his opinion about Wagner but we have the right to enjoy and see whatever we wish.

[Dave Rosenbaum]

“The man and the music are one,” said Carie Delmar, who runs a blog devoted to protesting the festival. She said that anti-Semitic themes can be found throughout Wagner’s works, and that the characters of Alberich and Mime in the “Ring” are thinly veiled Jewish caricatures."

She's exposing her. Only an anti-semite would have this view of Alberich and Mime.

[Mr. Reeee]

Fighting ignorance with ignorance. A brilliant strategy!

Mein Kampf? He can't be serious. Has he read it? Certainly, it has historical value, but NO ONE would discuss it as a work with any literary value whatsoever.

Der Ring des Nibelungen and Wagner's entire oeuvre represents, arguably, the pinnacle of 19th century Western art, music and culture. He changed forever the way art, theatre and music were synergetically combined and presented to create works of incredible, intensity, beauty and power on multiple levels.

To try and ban the Ring, or present some sort of Politically Correct damning/apology/warning label is the height, rather the DEPTH of exactly the sort of ignorance and stupidity that Antonovich, Delmar and their ilk think they are fighting.

Wagner was hardly the ONLY anti-semite in 19th century Europe where it was pervasive. Rather than doing the lazy thing, dragging out Wagner as the semites' easy whipping boy, why not do some research and illuminate us all as to the depth and breadth of anti-semitism in 19th century Europe. And YES, name names, but please do it alphabetically.

[A Reader]

I note that on his webpage, the second item listed in Mr. Antonovich's bio (after his birth info) is the fact that he is a member of the Lutheran Church. The following is excerpted from the Wikipedia ntry on Martin Luther.

Really, Mr. Anonovich, do you have a clue about the issue you are championing??

Luther's other major works on the Jews were his 60,000-word treatise Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies), and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ), both published in 1543, three years before his death.[166] Luther argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people": he referred to them with violent, vile language.[167][168] Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "poisonous envenomed worms" would be forced into labour or expelled "for all time".[169] In Robert Michael's view, Luther's words "We are at fault in not slaying them" amounted to a sanction of murder.[170]

[Argonaut]

Not to worry, Mike. Achim Freyer has obliterated all of the Wagner from this production, so don't worry your pretty little head about it. What I'd like to see you do is promote a baseball festival where we talk about football, basketball, hockey and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

People like Carie Delmar are professional idiots. The problem for Angelenos is when a supervisor starts talking like Carie Delmar. If you catch my drift.

[operamartyc]

I'm not a fan of this Freyer's Ring - the costumes and sets do not honor Wagner in any way - however, this attitude is laughable in a world where we need to heal old wounds in order to get along. Also, if Israel Phil can finally play Wagner in Israel, what is wrong with L. A. Opera performing Wagner. Doesn't this guy have anything better to do??? With the City, County and State in a financial crisis, he really ought to be worried about fixing those problems; not about an art/music festival - the first of its kind in LA. I'm embarrassed about the sets and costumes of this Ring but the singing and playing and conducting of James Conlon of the music is just WONDERFUL and we can certainly be proud of L. A. Opera for its performances! Thanks to Borda, Domingo and all who are trying to get our first arts festival off the ground! More power to you in spite of narrow minded politicians! Not playing Wagner because of his politics is just plain juvenile and silly! This supervisor needs to grow up! He is an embarrassment!

[philip horvath]

wow... isn't art all about transmutation of opposites? About creative dialog? About people transforming beyond a black and white world???

Wagner appears to have been a deplorable person to pretty much everyone, and if you look at the symbolism in the Ring with less narrow-minded focus, you will find that the Ring is pretty much lashing out at everyone, as the Ring in particular is about the sad fact that in our world power rules over love and that we all need to step up to more loving. Wagner was a struggling artist, miserable in many ways.

Did Wagner project his own personal issues on a whole group of people in a bogus, inappropriate, petty and jealous way. Absolutely. Is that a reason to disregard his work?

If being a people-loving decent human being is a criteria for being able to create art, please throw out Chopin, Carl Orff (a Nazi Party carrying member who composed Carmina Burana for Nazi events), and probably quite a few more.

To bring up the issue in this fashion is just creating an artificial divide, instead of honoring those who suffered from this, it is prolonging the bullshit. Would venture to say that the people in LA are bigger than that. Let's celebrate art and get over it....

[Michael Beatrice]

Based on this argument, we should also shut down Walt Disney's Disneyland.

[An Proud American Jew]

I appreciate both sides of this argument.

Freedom of speech and of the arts if a basic inalienable human right. Richard Wagner's compositions should be judged on the composer's merit and not because, after his death, Adoph HItler identified his music with his own, er, political leanings.

I also agree that political correctness should sometimes be damned. Sometimes it reaches absurb levels

But....

Richard Wagner was known as a proud anti-Semite. I have read for most of my life many writings about characters in his music who had a Semetic racist/negative slant. However, I am anything but an expert on this subject.

I still can't help but lean towards censorship of any artist who openly degrades any race, religion or culture. I am proud of any politican who has the courage to take a public position on this issue.

The list of music masters could fill pages. Why bother stirring a single living soul by showcasing Wagner's work?

I am sure my perspective can be seriously debated. It's a very sensitive issue.

[L Young]

Mr. Antonovich is a cultural idiot and the people of Los Angeles should be embarrassed.

[Right Mind]

Thank you, Mr. Antonovich, for starting my Friday morning out with a hearty chuckle.

The festival is about the art and the artist, not about glorifying the man's clearly misguided political views. Wagner's Ring is what most opera companies hope to produce someday; most cannot because they lack the resources and artistic maturity to do so.

The LA Opera's Ring and Festival will bring a huge amount of economic impact to the city, drawing cultural tourists from all over the nation and boosting much needed sales & tax revenue from hotel stays, restaurant visits and shopping (probably amounting to 10's of millions of dollars). I hope Mr. Antonovich is reading this.

[Michael Mellgard]

Wagner was a product of his time. Look back at our contry's history and there is plenty to be ashamed of.

[Joan Jaeckel]

Among the moral truths uncovered the hard way from the Nazi era is that when a politics weighs in on art merit, cultural degradation happens. But only every time. The role of politics is to promote fairness and justice under the law, not to determine which kind of people or which kind of art or what kind of thinking or what kind of religion may prevail.

[Mark Conlan]

Did anyone but me recall that the Nazis banned Jewish composers, including Mendelssohn and Mahler, from performance when they were in power? What's the difference between that and what Antonovich is suggesting?

The controversy over Wagner's attitudes towards the Jews has been going on since his lifetime, and if the comments already received on this issue prove anything, it's that Wagner's "Ring" is an awesome artistic achievement with many levels of meaning and a work that far transcends the petty (or not-so-petty) prejudices of its creator.

If the L.A. Opera wants to add another work to the festival, I have a suggestion: Jacques Halevy's "La Juive," an opera by a Jewish composer that attacked anti-Jewish prejudice -- and a work Wagner openly admired and acknowledged as an influence.

[JM]

Mr. Antonovich is certainly confirming the fact that Los Angeles is La La Land. Let's hope the people of his district find someone else to fill that position.

[JM]

Actually this is good news for LA Opera. This Ring Cycle so far is an artistic bore, but well performed. However, this controversy will be worth a fortune of publicity for LA Opera. Keep up the good work, Mike.

[H. Smith]

CLOSING THE CURTAIN ON CARRIE DELMAR

A Jewess art critic, Carrie Delmar, is objecting to a Los Angeles Opera Company performance of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. According to Miss Delmar Wagner, the author of the notorious essay “Judaism in Music” was therefore a founding father of the mythical Holocaust, the non-extermination of six million Jews in unicorn like “gas chambers”. One wonders whether Miss Delmar would argue that Winston Churchill should be written out of the history books because he once wrote an infamous newspaper article blaming Jews for communist revolution in Russia, Germany and Hungary. Or perhaps Voltaire, Diderot and D’Holbach should be deleted from the history of the French Enlightenment because they were all die-hard anti-Semites. Martin Luther obviously deserves to be expelled from the Lutheran church because of his well-known essay, “The Jews and Their Lies”. Walt Disney movies should never be shown because their creator disliked Jewish communist agitators working in his studios. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy should be stigmatized with the swastika and banned.

It would be idle to point out to the scholarly Miss Delmar that Richard Wagner had many devoted Jewish admirers and collaborators during his lifetime. Thus, from Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s informative book, “The Controversy of Zion” we learn that the Jew Heinrich Porges was Wagner’s chief assistant at Bayreuth, that the Jew Angelo Neumann toured Wagner’s operas, that the Jew Joseph Rubenstein was Wagner’s pianist in residence, that the Jew Carl Tausig made a piano arrangement of “Die Meistersinger” and that the Jew Herman Levi conducted the first performance of Parsifal”, the Christian search for the Holy Grail. In Miss Delmar’s demented mind, these Jewish admirers and collaborators with Richard Wagner must have been in the same category as Billy Wilder, the Viennese Jew who made “The Spirit of Saint Louis”, glorifying the same Charles Lindberg who blamed the tribe for pushing America into war against Adolf Hitler.

If every artist is to be banned because of personal defects and insensitivities, then what becomes of Pablo Picasso, who put out lighted cigarettes by pressing the butts against the faces of women? While Miss Delmar might love to ban Mel Gibson the same way she wishes to ban Richard Wagner, would she ban the movies of other Hollywood stars because of their sex tapes, their drug use and their extra-marital affairs? Would she even propose to ban such classic Hollywood fare as “Spartacus”, “Lawrence of Arabia” and “West Side Story” because of their provably communist screenwriters, directors and creators? Carrie Delmar undoubtedly thinks she is helping to combat anti-Semitism by trying to stigmatize Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In reality, she is fueling anti-Semitism. She is asserting that Jewish sensitivities are the standard which overrides artistic merit. A cycle of operas that have dazzled the world since they were first performed must now be sanitized and “explained” before a decontaminated public is allowed to listen to them.

If Carrie Delmar wishes to demonstrate that anti-Semites are correct about Jewish arrogance and power, she could hardly have “chosen” a better way to prove the point. Miss Delmar should concern herself less with the performances of operas of which she disapproves and more with the death, misery and suffering of the inmates of Gaza. Otherwise, the climactic words of “Pagliacci”, “Ah, sei tu! Ben venga!” (“It is you! Welcome!”) may acquire more than symbolic import.

[Nico D.]

Did you know that IBM provided the Nazis with the most advanced systems during WWII, allowing them to "streamline" extermination?

Why is IBM still allowed to perform in this country, then?