Israeli Orchestra to Perform Piece by Hitler’s Favorite Composer

Posted July 25th, 2011 at 9:50 am (UTC-5)
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An Israeli orchestra is preparing to perform a work by Richard Wagner at a festival in Germany, despite a long-standing informal ban on such performances inside the Jewish state.

The Israel Chamber Orchestra is due to play Wagner's “Siegfried Idyll” on Tuesday, during an annual opera festival in the southeastern German town of Bayreuth, the home of the 19th century composer.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has largely upheld an unofficial ban on Wagner's music because of his anti-Semitic writings and the appropriation of his music by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Six-million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in World War II.

Israel Chamber Orchestra conductor Roberto Paternostro told the Reuters news agency he believes in performing Wagner because the German was a “great composer.” Paternostro, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, says Wagner's anti-Semitic ideology should be treated as a separate matter.

The Israeli ensemble did not start rehearsing the Wagner piece until it arrived in Germany to avoid upsetting Israelis at home.

In a rare performance inside Israel, Israeli-Argentinean conductor Daniel Barenboim led the Berlin State Opera in playing an extract of Wagner's “Tristan and Isolde” in Tel Aviv in 2001. Some audience members walked out in protest.