can performing a famously antisemitic composer hit the right note in 2024?
- Written by Cristian Damir Martinez Vega, PhD candidate in Historical Musicology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Whenever the music of Richard Wagner is performed, the composer’s famously antisemitic views come back into sharper focus. With a harrowing conflict in the Middle East and rising antisemitism elsewhere, the “Wagner question” is almost inevitable.
So the timing of the Auckland Philharmonia’s sold-out performance this weekend of Wagner’s 165-year-old opera Tristan und Isolde raises very contemporary issues.
One argument is that we should value a musical (or any artistic) work on its own merits, independent of its historical context or maker’s views. Enjoy the art, not the artist, in other words.
Ironically, Wagner (1813–83) would have rejected this view of “artistic autonomy”. In fact, he advocated strongly for the social function of music in his 1849 essays “Art and Revolution” and “The Artwork of the Future”.
Following their publication, Wagner’s antisemitism became clearly evident in his 1850 essay “Jewishness in Music”. First published under a pseudonym, seven years before he began composing Tristan und Isolde, it was expanded and republished in 1869 under his own name.
Expressing deeply prejudiced views against Jewish composers and musicians, Wagner claimed they were incapable of true artistic creativity and accused them of corrupting German music. To appreciate Wagner in 2024, then, means divorcing his musical brilliance from his terrible ideas.
The enduring Wagner question
Wagner’s other claim to infamy, of course, is that he was revered by Adolf Hitler. That connection has affected Jewish and Palestinian communities to this day.
In 1938, before the establishment of Israel and during Hitler’s rise in Europe, the Palestine Symphony refused to perform Wagner.
In 2011, when the famous Jewish conductor Daniel Barenboim defied an informal ban on Wagner in Israel, it caused a cultural storm. The actual performance saw a furious 30-minute debate among the audience, some of whom walked out.
For the encore in question – somewhat fittingly in today’s context – Barenboim chose a piece from Tristan und Isolde.
These moral complexities surrounding Wagner were explored by the Jewish South African playwright Victor Gordon in his 2017 play You Will Not Play Wagner. It revolves around a young Israeli conductor wanting to perform Wagner against the wishes of a Holocaust survivor, and it reflects the tension between artistic freedom and historical memory.
Art and censorship
In New Zealand, and particularly Auckland where Tristan und Isolde will be performed tomorrow night, these questions resonate as strongly as ever.
Among the many Jewish Holocaust refugees who came to Auckland, for instance, the cellist Marie Blaschke contributed greatly to the country’s musical landscape, including with the Dorothy Davies Trio and the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra, and as a teacher at the University of Auckland.
But with the Auckland Philharmonia production already sold out, where do we stand on the Wagner question in New Zealand?
Personally, I share the view of Australian scholar Rachel Orzech, who has written about the subject and its resonance in Melbourne’s Jewish communities. In the end, we would agree, censorship is not the answer.
This was also the view of the Auckland Philharmonia’s director of artistic planning Gale Mahood, whom I spoke to for this article.
She pointed out that the orchestra’s Wagner season was announced long before the events of October 7, 2023. The decision to produce Tristan und Isolde this year, she explained, was a natural progression from last year’s presentation of the opera Die tote Stadt by Austrian-born composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Korngold himself fled Europe in the mid-1930s and became successful for his Hollywood film scores, as well as being a noted classical composer. He was also influenced by Wagner, which provided the thematic continuity for the Philharmonia’s 2024 program.
Cancel culture and the past
While there was no formal polling of the public, the relationship between the two operas, and the broader influence of Wagner on 20th-century composers, played a significant role in their decision.
Mahood stressed that the Philharmonia does not select music based on the political views of composers, and underscored the importance of separating the art from the artist. Old works, she said, often involve outdated or wrong ideas in contemporary contexts.
Furthermore, the Philharmonia and Opera New Zealand have been running a series of pre-concert lectures on Wagner’s music and his troubled legacy, and a session with renowned Wagnerian opera singer Simon O’Neill.
Ultimately, Mahood advised, people should focus on the phenomenal quality of the music, which is the primary reason for the performance, and which promises a unique and powerful experience.
An outright ban on Wagner’s music is surely not the best response. We cannot ignore the history intertwined with it, of course. While beautiful, it also carries deep, troubling associations for many.
Granting music artistic autonomy does not mean we overlook those valuable historical lessons. But cancel culture stifles the very conversations we need to continue.
Authors: Cristian Damir Martinez Vega, PhD candidate in Historical Musicology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
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