Sunday, March 21, 2010

In Important News More Appropriate to this Blog's Alleged Topic

Wolfgang Wagner, son of Siegfried Wagner, grandson of Richard Wagner, who revived the Bayreuth Festival after World War II with his brother Wieland, has died, age 90, according to Sounds & Fury.

2 comments:

Joe Barron said...

This comment from the Guardian obit confused me: Winifred's conventional anti-semitism – for instance, blaming "New York Jews" for Toscanini's refusal to work at Bayreuth after 1933 – should be put in the context of her employment policy at Bayreuth, which ignored Nazi injunctions.

Why does support for Hitler have to be placed in any sort of context?

Lisa Hirsch said...

It doesn't. That's a British paper making excuses for the British Winifred, I assume. What they might mean: Frieda Leider, who was married to a Jewish man, continued to work at Bayreuth after 1933. Max Lorenz, who was arrested for homosexual behavior at least once, continued to work at Bayreuth. Etc.