Antisemitism
Wagner is known almost as well for his antisemitism as for his music. He wrote extensively about his antisemitic views, most famously in Judaism in Music. Wagner’s antisemitism can’t be brushed aside - the artist cannot be separated from the art - because antisemitism was an integral part of Wagner’s creative process and the worldview he expounded in his operas.
So, what are we to do about Wagner’s antisemitism today? Do we ignore it? Do we dismiss it as a product of his times? Do we edit the operas? Do we give outlandish politicized stagings that critique antisemitism and fascism? Do we cancel Wagner? These are the questions faced as we wrestle with:
Wagner’s Antisemitism
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VIDEO: Richard Wagner and his Antisemitism
The basics of Wagner’s antisemitism. Why it is so unique, significant, and troubling?
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ESSAY: Are We Actually Bothered by Wagner's Antisemitism?
Expounding from the case of Wagner, and using it as the ultimate litmus test, Pierre-Nicolas Colombat asks what role, if any, does morality play in how we listen to music in 2022?
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MUSIC: Les Deux Grenadiers
Wagner’s setting of a French translation of a German poem (here with English subtitles) by the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine. Wagner gave Heine the backhanded insult, or compliment, it is hard to tell, of being “a highly-gifted poet-Jew.” Wagner’s respect was, although qualified, genuine; in addition to this song, Wagner, when creating “The Flying Dutchman”, was directly inspired by Heine’s retelling of the tale of The Flying Dutchman in “From the Memoirs of Herr Schnabelewopski.”