Supervisor Antonovich wants Wagner dropped from opera festival [Update]

[Updated 11:28 p.m.: Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he does not want to cancel the festival. He wants to substitute works by other composers.]

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich is demanding that Los Angeles Opera discontinue the Ring Festival L.A. planned for next year, calling Richard Wagner a, “Nazi composer.”

“To specifically honor and glorify the man whose music and racist anti-Semitic writings inspired Hitler and became the de facto soundtrack for the Holocaust in a countywide festival is an affront to those who have suffered or have been impacted by the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialistic Worker Party,” Antonovich said in a statement released today.

Holocaust survivors and their families have contacted supervisors in recent weeks to express outrage at the festival. Some have threatened to picket.

Antonovich suggested the opera company, “Delete the focus on Wagner and incorporate other composers as headliners including Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Schubert, Schumann, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn and others.”

But the festival is already underway. Singers are in rehearsal, posters are printed and tickets are on sale.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who began his political career as a Jewish activist, has been an ardent supporter of the festival, appearing at the opening news conference and lauding the participation of 75 community partners.

Yaroslavsky was traveling today and unavailable for comment.

L.A. Opera attempted to address Wagner’s legacy in a note on its website.

“While Richard Wagner is considered one of the most important and influential of all composers, he is also rightly reviled as having been an anti-Semite,” the site says. “Wagner’s writings on the subject percolated into German politics and popular culture and, decades after the composer’s death, were celebrated by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. It is the Company’s belief that opera has value not only as musical and theatrical entertainment, but as a way to gain important historical insight and to explore moral issues. Ring Festival LA will specifically address the subject of Wagner’s anti-Semitism in several contexts, including seminars, panel conversations and performances.”

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske at L.A. Hall of Administration

Comments

[Rob R Barron]

How about we ban all Lutheran churches as well, since Martin Luther the founder of Lutheranism was also an anti-Semite?

Instead of making political hay with something like this, I suggest our Supervisors spend more time fixing our roads, our hospitals, our schools and our neighborhoods.

[dino]

Antonovich is a moron

[Brad Davies]

Well I'm glad the board of dupes, I mean sups has addressed the important issues... Like gang violence (speaking of racially motivated hate crimes), 12-20% unemployment (canceling a festival will create hundreds of new jobs I'm sure...

[Samantha]

I do not want the Board of Supervisor censoring performances. He is welcome to criticize openly, but he / they do not have the right to censor. Wagner is recognized for extraordinary musical talent. If the Board is successful in censoring Wagner, who next?
It would be, indeed, a slippery slope.

[BTinSF]

Oh please prove how provincial and petty you are, LA, and send this production to San Francisco, Seattle or even Santa Fe, all of which have done successful and non-controversial Ring cycles in recent decades.

Instead of attending The Ring, Angelenos can spend some time reading up on the post-war debate about the greatest of Wagner conductors, Wilhelm Furtwangler, who, in spite of entertaining Hitler at numerous concerts, left a deathless legacy of great performances that have long since outlived the controversy.

[Absolutely Vic]

It's one thing if Richard Wagner was literally Hitler's composer. Unfortunately for Mr. Antonovich, he died in 1883. What he's doing is making a mountain out of a molehill. What's next? Picketing the Beatles or the Beach Boys because they inspired Charles Manson? This is the kind of knee-jerk politics that infuriates me. If you don't like Wagner, guess what? Don't go to the performance. Doesn't Mr. Antonovich have better things to do with his time than get up in arms about this-- you know, like help fix the city's financial woes?

[J Minger]

While we acknowledge that for some, painful memories are attached to the performance of this music, Wagner's abhorrent beliefs and his amazing music are not legitimately connected to each other. The L. A. Opera is correct to proceed with this important music while acknowledging the dark side of the man. Any direct connection to the Nazis was created by the Nazis well after the composer was dead and buried.

[Peter]

Modernely, I wonder if Wagner would have changed his tune if he were allowed to take the subway to the sea, rather than a crowded SRO bus due to the anti-regular people mindset in Beverly Hills and Hancock Park?

[jay]

The right always starts by banning things. This time the Ring and all of Wagner, the next time who knows? Who will decide, what will the boundaries be? A too slippery slope.

Especially since Antonovich knows that the very Jewish Zev is for it, this is clearly another case of Republican grandstanding as they look to place one of their own in the Mayor's office in 2013/ just as Zine and Trutanich have already started "campaigning" according to the Daily News' Rick Orlov this week. Hell no, and it's especially offensive when people like this try to speak FOR Jews based on feigned outrage for votes.

[Kwagmyre]

This issue has come up before. It was in Israel several years ago and understandably it provoked much controversy. Just basing the decision on Wagner's anti-Semitism alone wouldn't be adequate grounds for exclusion in my opinion. Tristan Und Isolde(and esp. the Libestod)is one of the prettiest operas around.

[Charles Duran]

Banning or suppressing any work of art because one finds it offensive is the mark of hypocrisy and ignorance, you know like, Nazi book burning.

[John Norman Howard]

I'm sure banning Wagnerian Opera will cause anti-semitism to decline and win many new friends for the Jews.

[Luke]

Wow! It's hard to believe that this could happen in the year 2009 in LA of all places.

Wagner was not a nice guy and had some repulisve views, not least of all his anit-semitism. But he had nothing to do with Hitler and the Third Reich. If Hitler hadn't been a Wagner fan this wouldn't be an issue. Hitler was a big fan of the visual arts too. Should we ban all the paintings he liked as well?

[SeanBoy]

While we are at it, how about also banning all cars and trucks make by Ford? Since Henry Ford is also a fanatic anti-Semite.

[Bob]

I'm kind of amazed the Times even dignified this blather by reprinting it. Antonovich has been foaming at the mouth with one pointless and doomed-to-fail publicity stunt after another for decades. Moving on ...

[AL]

What confuses me is that LA Opera announced the Ring Festival at least three years ago, and we heard absolutely nothing from Antonovich at the time. So all of sudden, after they've premiered 2 of the 4 operas in their regular cycle, Antonovich decides he has something to say? Since when does the Board of Supervisors have anything to say about what the LA Opera chooses to present? It's not a county institution. Furthermore, presenting a Ring Cycle is a huge step in furthering the international prowess of LA Opera, which is one of the big reasons they wanted to do it. They've stated this motivation, so why would Antonovich's suggestion of replacing Wagner with Mozart and whatever be any consolation? I just can't even begin with how idiotic this whole thing is. Seriously, it's a minor tragedy that LAT is even reporting it.

[Dundili]

This is absolutely ridiculous. Shameful. Banning and censoring is far more fascist than Wagner's single note (the man was dead before Hitler was born).

Open your mind Antonovich, and while you are at it, go learn a bit about music.

[Madrugada]

While you're at it, Mike, better make sure that none of the works of art in the LA County Museum of Art were painted by anti-Semites!
And what about the books in the LA County Library system?

[A.J.]

It's pretty funny that this should be happening in L.A., which has been presenting its Recovered Voices operas for several years now, and might therefore be entitled to more than a little ideological impunity when programming a repertory staple by Wagner.

I suppose if the bureaucrats in L.A. were smart enough to take serious umbrage with any municipal support of the arts, it might have been with the $2 million of taxpayer money recently used to memorialize a drug-addicted pedophile.

But that's just my 2¢.

[AntiZionisterror]

This is why I am against all Zionist Terrorists.

[David Ocker]

This is not about censorship. Please put that argument away. No one, as I understand it, in spite of the reporting above, is asking anyone to cancel anything. What this IS about is balancing opposing viewpoints in a publicly supported venue.

Also -- this is not about the operas themselves. It IS about the Festival specifically which was announced last year as a city-wide fawning Wagner fan-fest. It received a good deal of civic-booster support from business leaders and politicians. The Music Center is a county institution and the Performing Arts Center of LA County is first on the list of Festival partners. As such it's entirely appropriate for the Supervisors to address this issue.

If you want to attend Wagner's operas, please do so. Enjoy them. If you want to drive a certain brand of auto or go to a particular church or whatever other specious comparisons were made above, I certainly have no complaints. Those things have NOTHING to do with this subject.

We need to concentrate on the fact that it is still too soon in history to forget that Wagner and his music were inspirations of great evil. The fact that Wagner was already dead does not mitigate the evil. The Nazi stains will simply not wash out of the Ring Cycle because people still like the music.

I believe that a Wagner festival held in my name - in the names of all LA County residents - should have a strong focus on the story of how the Nazis were inspired by Wagner. This belongs front and center. Not to give this issue prominence is, in effect, a small bit of forgiveness for Hitler and his abominations.

[Jason Saunders]

You know IBM designed and built the machines that tabulated the deaths of Jews and heterosexuals and they knew exactly what they were doing. Volkswagen made their cars. Bayer made the gas that killed the Jews. Siemens, one of the companies that makes L.A. Metro's light rail cars, built huge factories with concentration camp labor.

These companies did what they did knowingly. Wagner, an important figure in the history of music, was long dead by the time the Nazi's came around.

Should we ban these companies too?

[Elizabeth Tatum]

Dear Mr. Antonovich:
As an African-American, I myself would be outraged by any overtly oppressive and/or racist artistic productions in Los Angeles. However, Wagner's music (some of which I have sung) is not intended to support the Nazi cause, which didn't even EXIST until long after the man died. If someone wants to glorify Hitler, then I'll be outraged. Please don't censor meaningful and beautiful art, in addition to crushing opportunities for those who have worked endlessly to provide a wonderful artistic experience for the public.

[Polomoche]

Wagner is a great opportunity to thoughtfully explore issues of anti-Semtism towards a more tolerant future. If you ban Wagner, you then have an incredibly long list of anti-Semites to accompany him, both in the U.S. and abroad. In short, this Antonovich is an idiot.

[inked]

Yes, yes, this is all well and good... when will the opera be bringing Ice T's, "Cop Killer," to the stage? Or, for that matter, Body Count's version?

Maybe a medly of related songs could be arranged - sort of like Deuling Banjos?

Ah... nothing like a night at the opera. That's class, baby. That's class.

[Little Bee]

You know, you people out there in the 2nd Supervisorial District keep re-electing this guy and his massive intellect. This is not the first time the Honorable Supervisor has done something that makes you go "Whaaaaat?"

[Frederick Morris]

Others have come to grief trying to censor the arts in Los Angeles. Mr. Antonovich, there are more graceful ways of retiring from public life.

[Vic]

The war is over, we can safely enjoy the music of Wagner the same way Lincoln had Dixie played at the White House at the first celebration of Lee's surrender. Antonovich needs to calm down and find something relevant to get excited over.

[Davidsohn]

I think Antonovich is right about this matter. I think also the comments on this page are mostly listed by Non Jews who never had to endure Anti Semitism or do not know much about compassion. Of course most of the same types who waited til 6 million Jews were holocausted in Europe before anyone took any action. Of course some may want to know that not only 6 million Jews fell victim to Anti Semitism but close to 60 million were killes in the name of Anti Semitism or using anti Semitism as a scapegoat and that included 450 thousand American soldiers who lost their lives, many african Europeans, Ethiopians, freedom loving peoples allover Europe and fighters, some Greeks, Australians and more. Wagner's Anti Semitism is the flame that makes a fire grow in other words and his overt Anti Semitism was well known with certain disdain and distaste in his own time. Antonovich is the only smart one around to set you all straight.

Why not with your views invite Bin Laden over to teach fighting and perform his terrorist acts with your overt support for anti semetic artists.

Anti Semetic is a form of terrorism that is illegal and has to be brought to justice at every block of the world because it ultimately makes everyone suffer.

[Davidsohn]

Zionism never invaded your country and was never a terrorist but Anti Semitism did and caused an attack on Pearl Harbor which claimed thousands of lives so remember this. You will need to learn to detect what terrorism is and how it works its way and who through before you make decisions based on who is a terrorist or who is not. Jews do not go around the world taking over people's countries either such as in Dharfur or Armenia when the Islamic nations did this. Who are terrorists? Jews didn't go rolling into your nation with guns and weapons to murder and slaughter your children ever in all the history of mankind! Hitler was a Catholic by birth. Political leaders should learn to stop people like Aryan Nations and the Klu Klux Klan as well and it is their job to do so. Those crimes perpetrated by Anti Semite groups or heated hate groups cost the public alot of money and incite fear, anger, and create divisions. Nazism should be obliterated at every level inside the USA for the USA fought so terribly hard to overcome it's precepts & principals. For god's sake if you don't think 450 thousand soldiers lives were important I don't know what in the hell Gd you do think is important. What we struggled for as a Nation now we allow to perpetuate itself in many many ways and mock those who speak up about it. The DEVIL is a mocker. The only way to fix our economy is to print up more money. The budget was devised to grow and America has been in debt long before anyone here knew of before the Great Depression. Numbers get bigger and so does the printing demands. If you allow Anti Semitism to go wild you'll get another Nazi Germany inside America again filled with Nazi music, nazi songs, nazi slogans or the like.

[JM Gerardo]

I emailed the following:

HOW DARE YOU OPPOSE ART.
Is it Wagner's fault that Hitler did possibly exulted him?
Wagner had questionable thoughts and beliefs... yes, he probably was a anti-semite... BUT ARE WE GOING TO CENSOR MUSIC here in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

There is a 'ban' in ISRAEL of Wagner music, not the USA, but in ISRAEL. Yet, it took a favorite son in Daniel Barenboim, to broach this and conduct a Wagner piece in Israel in 2001.

Especially from someone who was significant to classical music as Beethoven, Wagner's music changed what opera could be for generations. His music ought to be performed.

I have travelled throughout Europe (Stuttgart, Munich, Bayreuth, Vienna) and the United States (Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, etc.) to listen to Wagner operas. They are powerful, are emotionally potent, and EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO PERFORM. (some performers were not capable of successfully singing the roles) - but when sung and performed successfully, it's sublime.

We are in a budget mess, we are experiencing an economic meltdown... go OPPOSE SOMETHING ELSE and spend your time balancing the LA county budget.

[Robert Gupta]

Mr. Swed -
I wanted to congratulate you on your excellent response to Mr. Antonovich's thoroughly aggravating statement. Having just performed two complete Wagner Ring Cycles in Valencia, Spain under the direction of Zubin Mehta, I have to say that I was absolutely outraged by this dictum, which demonstrates a deep and inexcusable ignorance of the message of the Cycle, and, more importantly, the huge international cultural appeal and demand commanded by the Ring. I encountered audience members at the Valencia Cycle from all over the world, the Ring-philes who are committed to traveling all over the world (from places like New Zealand, South America, South Africa, Asia, etc.) to attend performances of the complete Ring; Los Angeles is on their list! It would be an outrageous tragedy if we lost those international audience members, as well our own vast audiences coming in from all over Southern California.

Those people would be coming to hear the Ring Festival, and not operatic works by any other composer, not even other Wagnerian operas. To call on the LA Opera to now expand its repertory, which is already stretched in its courageous attempt to put on a Ring, demonstrates a tragic ignorance of the musical process, with respect to the dedication of services by musicians, administrators of the LA Opera, and all the various artists and personnel involved. In my opinion, to perform a Ring cycle is a complete triumph of society; to coordinate the multifarious facets of instrumental and vocal musical performance, direction, production, set design, costume design, staging, lighting, etc. is something to be admired, appreciated, attended, and applauded. It demands such virtuosity and virtuosity of coordination on each level that the end product can only be overwhelmingly positive artistic and cultural experience. Ring cycles will always be internationally performed and appreciated; to remove that experience from any international cultural scene, especially our own home city, is criminal. We should be proud to perform a Ring Cycle, and to have artists such as Placido Domingo, Achim Freyer, and James Conlon at its helm.

The expressive content of a musical or artistic message can never be changed by those who appreciate it, and more importantly by those who mold or mutate it to fit a perverted and thoroughly horrifying message. The impact the Ring had on musical composers after Wagner is akin to that most famous 9th Symphony of Beethoven; it radically changed, influenced, and inspired an entire musical culture, as it will continue to do, regardless of Wagner's opponents. The message of the Ring is a potent part of our cultural consciousness, as it will always be with great works of Art. Personally, the Ring cycle has shaped and influenced me as a human being and artist, and I am greatly looking forward to sharing a deeply moving experience with my colleagues and fellow audience members in Los Angeles. For LA to be home to a Ring Cycle is reason to be proud, on an international cultural level.To be ignorant of the power of this expression, to disregard its potent, tragic message, and to attempt to butcher a Cycle with no knowledge of the emotional musical and artistic content, deeply saddens me, especially when it only serves to benefit an educated, vibrant, and artistic community, as we are so proud to have in Los Angeles.

I support your response wholeheartedly; as a musician, a performer, and lover of Art.

Robert Vijay Gupta
Los Angeles Philharmonic
MM '07, Yale University
BS '05, Marist College

[Carie Delmar]

I am appalled at all of these comments. Supervisor Antonovich has absolutely no intentions of canceling Los Angeles Opera's productons of the "Ring" cycle. Edward W, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for communicating false information. Although the "Ring" cycle productions are a portion of Ring Festival LA, the 70-event festival of films, lectures, concerts and exhibits which will occur at venues all over Los Angeles County from mid-April through June 30, has a separate budget and organization team. It is this group of events that Supervisor Antonovich chooses to alter so that more composers are added to create balance. This is not about censorship. It is about program choices that will show the sensitivity of county leaders to the needs of those members of the Jewish community who have suffered from Nazi tyranny.

Wagner wrote anti-Semitic essays and incorporated his views into his librettos and characterizations. He inspired Adolf Hitler to carry out the Final Solution. Hitler turned his music into the soundtrack of the Holocaust. His family members had every opportunity to clean up his legacy, but became Nazis instead.

Katharina Wagner, Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter, recently announced that she will open up the archives in Bayreuth so that historians can determine the extent of her family's Nazi past. Los Angeles Opera's Ring festival is patterned after the Bayreuth Festivals. There will be a cloud hanging over the Los Angeles festival as long as the two are associated. The only way to remove that cloud is to diversify.

[Baron Zlatkovski]

It's true what they say about Wagner, and not hearing his music is no great detriment to society or culture. Every day spent re-hearing his music is a day not discovering a world of other music. If anything should be substituted for his music, it is that of Jewish composers, particularly those destroyed in the Holocaust.

[starlight]

I live nowhere near CA. The Nazis were good at using censorship to further their own agenda. Must we? I agree with others that if you don't like it, don't attend the concerts. This is the U.S.A., not Nazi Germany. We have choices here and a Ring Cycle is not a Ring Cycle w/o Wagner. Is budget a factor here?

[john thames]

THE RING OF BALFOUR

A Mr. Antonovich of the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County is objecting to a performance of the “Ring” cycle by Richard Wagner. Wagner was an anti-Semite and thus a founding father of “The Holocaust”, according to Mr. Antonovich. Perhaps the Los Angeles Opera should commission a cycle commemorating the suffering of the Palestinians. Were it entitled “The Balfour Ring” that would surely satisfy the sensitivities of Mr. Antonovich.

[joun thames]

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.