“It was intended to break a seven-decade unofficial boycott and smash an enduring cultural symbol of the Nazi era,” writes Harriet Sherwood in Tuesday’s (6/5) Guardian (London). “But the first performance of works by Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer, by an Israeli symphony orchestra in the Jewish state was never likely to be a harmonious event. And now it has been thwarted. Tel Aviv University, the venue for a symposium on the German composer on 18 June culminating in a musical performance, has cancelled the booking made by the Israel Wagner Society following a wave of protests. The university claimed it had been misled by the organisers. ‘We recently found out, to our astonishment, that the event is actually a concert during which the works of German composer Richard Wagner are to be performed,’ it said in a letter released to the media. ‘You deliberately concealed this important detail from us, as well as the topic of the event and the exact name of the organisation behind it.’ Public objections had contributed to the decision, the university added. … Jonathan Livny, the founder of the Israel Wagner Society, gave his response to the Guardian: ‘Total disgust.’ He said he had made the programme and the identity of its organisers clear in email correspondence with the university. … Among those lodging complaints was the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre, which said it was intolerable for music heard in Nazi concentration camps to be played in concert in the Jewish state.”
Posted June 6, 2012
