Wagner, Anti-Semitism, and Mr. Rose: Merkwrd'ger Fall!

Author(s): Hans Rudolf Vaget Source: The German Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 2, German-Jewish-Austrian Aspects (Spring, 1993), pp. 222-236 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/407470 . Accessed: 27/10/2011 06:15
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HANSRUDOLFVAGET

Smith College Wagner, Anti-Semitism, and Mr. Rose: Merkwulrd'ger Falll

Every now and then a book comes along which unexpectedly succeeds--by a happy coincidence of subject matter, memory, and timing-in adding fuel to a fire that seemed safely contained. Such a book is Professor Paul Rose's much-touted polemical study of Wagner and anti-Semitism,i which brings into focus the most contested issue of German history and the most controversial figure of German art. It does so at a time when in Germany the question of national identity is yet again laden with anti-Semitism If Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und and xenophobia, and when in Israel the Isolde,Die Meistersinger, Parsifal were and matter of Wagner's anti-Semitism is again indeed vehicles for the propagation of antiand again invoked to justify the ban of his Semitism, as Mr. Rose believes, they would music. On the American scene, it is true, have no place in any cultural practice that the issue of Wagner has at no time in his- we consider acceptable, and we could not, in good conscience, go on listening to the tory-not even during World War I-been treated with the kind of passion it has music of Wagner as though it were music created in Israel and Germany. Still, even like any other. What is ultimately at stake, here, there has been plenty of discussion then, is the survival and acceptance of and debate: as one reluctant and skeptical Wagner's musico-dramatic oeuvre as an inWagnerian recently put it, "the 1980s have dispensable element of Western culture. generated a cultural climate that is once To engage with Mr. Rose is both a chalagain profoundly hospitable to Wagner."2 lenge and a necessity. If nothing else, such What Mr. Rose-the Hecht Professor of engagement may lead to a more balanced History at the University of Haifa-has to critical perspective on Wagner's anti-Semsay is not exactly new, but it is said with itism and a more nuanced understanding uncommon emotion and breathtaking of the specific character and ideological radicalism. Rose urges us to stop being "in- dimension of the Wagnerian work of art. tellectually naive" (26), and to face the fact that "hatred of Jewishness is the hidden To begin with, we must consider what is agenda of virtually all the operas" (170) of perhaps the most topical of the various conWagner. In the following remarks, which texts in which this book is situated: the longThe German Quarterly 66.2 (Spring 1993) 222

are plainly and openly polemical, I intend to refute this thesis. I do so not by contesting Wagner's anti-Semitism as such, but rather by contesting what Mr. Rose makes of it. Whatever different conclusions we might draw from a critical examination of Mr. Rose's argument, one thing seems certain: his book compels us, more forcefully than any other I know, to face what is undoubtedly the thorniest issue in all of Wagner. This book is a vivid reminder of the difficulty we all have sooner or later to confront when we honestly try to account for the painfully familiar Wagnerian paradox: the coexistence in the same mind of aesthetic ideas and psychological insights that have lost nothing of their fascination, and of odious personal views and sentiments that have played a disastrous role in history.

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standing debate about Wagner in Israel. It dates back to the early years of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by Bronislav Huberman, the violin virtuoso. In the early part of 1938, Arturo Toscanini was still able to put Wagner on the program of the orchestra--a gesture that signaled to the world his continued fidelity to Wagner despite his refusal to conduct Parsifal in Bayreuth in 1933, in protest against the new regime's racial policies. Late in 1938, however, Eugen Szenkar was forced to cancel a performance of the Meistersinger prelude in the wake of Kristallnacht, 8 November 1938. Since then, Wagner's music (and, by the way, Richard Strauss's as well) has been conspicuously absent from the Philharmonic's program despite repeated attempts by Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, and others to end the ban. From Israel, it so happens, hails another study on the subject ofWagner's anti-Semi-

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dissolution of one of the core experiences of Jewish history and memory" (192). Indeed, one might even go so far as to characterize his book as an elaborate attempt to justify the ban and to provide additional ammunition in its defense.

One of the striking features ofMr. Rose's book is its distribution of weight: approximately 90% of the text is devoted to Wagner's political and metapolitical utterances, only some 10%to the operas. This is odd, considering Mr. Rose's desire to demonstrate, as he puts it, the "embedding" of Wagner's anti-Semitism "in the operas" (127). If this is indeed his aim, one would expect a detailed engagement with the poetic and musical texts of the operas. But such engagement is simply not forthcoming. Mr. Rose attaches far more weight to the pamphlets, letters, and conversations of Wagner than to the operas, the only manifestations of his creativity that really tism, The Darker Side of Genius:Richard matter. The point of this strategy is apWagner's Anti-Semitism by Jacob Katz, a parently to overwhelm the reader: Mr. Rose distinguished historian who teaches at the lays before us a profusion of selected quotaHebrew University in Jerusalem and is as- tions, in the hope that its sheer mass will sociated there with the Leo Baeck Institute. numb our critical faculties and silence our Katz, who is also the author ofa magisterial objections. I have already noted the lopsidedness of study of European anti-Semitism,3 arrived at conclusions markedly different from the overall design of the book. Asimilar lopthose now presented by Mr. Rose. In crucial sidedness prevails in the presentation of respects, the two books are diametrically Wagner's theoretical writings. By Mr. Rose's opposed: Katz warns against the tempta- account, hatred of Jews was the wellspring tion to read Wagner's personal anti-Semi- of Wagner's literary and musical creativity, tism into the operas, while Rose asserts that anti-Semitism, the ultimate concern of all the composer's anti-Semitism is deeply em- he wrote and said. To make his point, Mr. bedded in them. Whereas Rose attributes Rose scans everything that can be subto Wagner a large measure of responsibility sumed under a, broadly speaking, antifor the political uses of his music in the Semitic discourse. His prime sources are Third Reich--and, ultimately, for the "Judaism in Music" (1850), late essays such Holocaust- Katz rejects as illegitimate any as "What is German?" (1865/1883), "Herodom and Christendom" (1881), "Religion attempt to interpret Wagner's statements on the subject in light of later events. Katz and Art" (1881), and, finally, the diaries takes no position on the ban of Wagner's (1869-83) of Cosima Wagner, where Mr. music in Israel; he writes about it sym- Rose, time and again, finds confirmation of pathetically, but finds it rather ironic none- the most sinister intent of Wagner's uttheless.4 Rose supports the ban and defends terances. It is, of course, perfectly legitit as "a preeminent rite for warding off the imate, for the sake of the argument, to focus

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on just one aspect of Wagner's work, provided that argument gives us a sense of the whole and of the relative weight of the phenomenon under discussion. Such a sense of the whole is sadly absent from this book, which attempts to convince us that a relatively short pamphlet, "Judaism in Music," is the centerpiece of the whole Wagnerian enterprise. Conversely, what is generally considered to be the central text of Wagner's theorizing, Opera and Drama, is completely ignored. This is especially astonishing given that Opera and Drama dates from the same period-1851-as "Judaism in Music," and that great importance is elsewhere attached throughout this book to questions of chronology. The consequences of this maneuver are far-reaching. If you strip Wagner of Opera and Drama-and of all the other writings on music, literature, and theater-you take away what made him the towering figure that he is: his unsurpassed knowledge and mastery of his metier. You also conceal the musical heritage of Viennese Classicism and the literary and philosophical heritage of Weimar Classicism and, thus, the very backbone of Wagner's artistic and intellectual personality. And you erase from the record the ultimate point of orientation in Opera and Drama, classical antiquity.5 From reading Mr. Rose's book, no one would suspect that Wagner's work had anything to do with Aeschylus or with Greek tragedy. In view of such a drastic manipulation of perspective, one cannot fail to see Mr. Rose's image of Wagner as anything other than a caricature. By masking and blocking out Greek antiquity and German classicism in music and literature, Mr. Rose clears the table for an amazing new construct of his own. He calls it "Revolutionism," or, more often, "German Revolutionism" and "antisemitic Revolutionism." Its originator, according to Mr. Rose, was the post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, its chief ingredients, political revolution and racial think-

ing. Aside from Fichte, a motley group of writers and philosophers (among them, assimilated Jews) are said to have made up German Revolutionism. The list includes Ernst Moritz Arndt, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Bruno Heinrich Bauer, Karl Marx, Ludwig Ba5rne, Heine, and others; they represent German Romanticism and Idealism and the Young Germany movement. By sheer accumulation, it seems, these writers produced a vile, explosive brew of nationalism, socialism, and anti-Semitism, into which Wagner--for reasons that remain unclear-immersed himself. Social, economic, andpolitical factors play no role in this account of German Revolutionism. Wagner's own particularly nasty and militant (39) brand of anti-Semitism is said to be derived from that brew; it crystallized in 1847-two years earlier than is usually mentioned-having been triggered by his well-known envy of the Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. In order to strengthen his account, Mr. Rose argues that Wagner's decisive turn to German Revolutionism actually occurred five years earlier, in his third opera, Rienzi (1842), which Mr. Rose, claiming to follow Barry Millington,6 labels as a "fascist opera" (25). "Henceforth," he continues, cleverly loading the dice, "Wagner would pursue a German Revolution that was both nationalist and socialist" (26). Here, one begins to make out the general thrust of Mr. Rose's indictment: not only was Wagner an anti-Semite through and through, his work also was a major source of inspiration for National Socialism even before he put his anti-Semitic cards on the table. Mr. Rose's term "German Revolutionism" strikes me as awkward, though I can see that it conveniently covers nearly all the diverse elements the author needs to build his case. I am not at all sure, however, I understand its precise meaning, though I do understand its strategic function for Mr. Rose: he tries to kill two birds with one stone. By substituting German Revolu-

FORUM tionism as the matrix ofWagner's work, and by isolating it from other traditions such as antiquity and German classicism, Mr. Rose in effect cuts Wagner off from any tradition that is demonstrably not anti-Semitic. If an intrinsically anti-Semitic movement such as German Revolutionism provided the intellectual foundation, Wagner's operas, according to Mr. Rose, could hardly be anything but more or less camouflaged vehicles of anti-Semitism. German Revolutionism also serves to refute Jacob Katz, who has presented a somewhat different account of the matter. Katz distinguishes between "various phases'Y7 and two different types of anti-Semitism: (1) the traditional enmity towards the Jews, which had primarily a religious and social motivation; and (2), the quasi-scientific anti-Semitism that began to flourish in the 1870s and 1880s--the latter, a racially motivated anti-Semitism that had as its goal a so-called solution of the Jewish problem. Wagner's anti-Semitism, according to Katz, belongs to the earlier, the traditional, hostility towards the Jew. Thus, Katz sees anti-Semitism as an episode in Wagner's life, as one facet inhis spiritual orbit-albeit a major one; Mr. Rose locates an anti-Semitism of the later, more virulent, sort in the very matrix of Wagner's entire operatic oeuvre. To show how Mr. Rose's ploy of German Revolutionism is intended to work, let me cite just one example. Armed with his convictions, he presents the following argument concerning Der Ring des Nibelungen. Its "revolutionary nature," according to Mr. Rose, "has long been accepted." It follows "that, ipso facto, these operas are profoundly antisemitic" (68). The "ipso facto"gives it away. It indicates that the prime interpretive function of German Revolutionism is to locate anti-Semitism at "the heart of the operas" (5). This sort of shaky logic-in the determined effort to convict Wagner of a sort of anticipatory complicity in the Holocaust--simply will not do.

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Any discussion of Wagner's anti-Semitism must, of course, come to terms with "Das Judentum in der Musik," the chief anti-Semitic document from his hand, first published anonymously in 1850, and then again, as a separate brochure under his own name, in 1869. It is primarily on account of this text, with its far-reaching historical reverberations, that Wagner poses a moral problem, regardless of his appropriation and exploitation by Adolf Hitler. Wagner's article concludes with the following sentence: "Aber bedenkt, daB nur Eines Eure Erl6sung von dem auf Euch lastenden Fluche sein kann, die Erl6sung Ahasver's: Der UntergangP'8 Commenting on this sentence, Jacob Katz emphasizes that Wagner's pamphlet is "by no means intended" as a call for the physical destruction of the Jews, but rather for their "de-Judaization-a process of radical assimilation, not indeed to the existing bourgeois world but to the new social and political creation that Wagner anticipated and imagined as a revoluFor tionary utopia.'"9 Mr. Rose, whose chapter on "Judaism in Music" is sharply aimed at Katz, this is much too benign a reading. He finds a "clear logical implication" that "ultimately a harder approach would have to be taken towards" the Jews. By "harder approach" he evidently means physical destruction. Mr. Rose's argument here is strangely twisted; it runs something like this: Since Ludwig B6rne, the only example of a totally assimilated Jew mentioned by Wagner, was so obviously an exception, Wagner could not possibly have had in mind a similarly benign de-Judaization for the Jews in general. The last word of Wagner's article is "Untergang"--meaning perishing or, as Katz translates it, goingunder. Mr. Rose, predictably, opts for a "harder" translation: destruction, thereby "clarifying" what he takes to be Wagner's true intention. It is interesting to note how this "clarification" works. Mr. Rose gives a transitive meaning to what is basically an intransitive verb ("untergehen"); he substitutes an unam-

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an ambiguous noun---destruction-for in doing so, biguous one--perishing-and he misrepresents, ever so subtly, what Wagner has written. Additional "proof"of Mr. Rose's "hard" reading is found inwhat he sees as Wagner's "ever more precise" and '"realistic" thinking on the problem of the "destruction of Jewishness" in later years. In support of this unspecified charge, Mr. Rose invokes what he terms an intrinsically "ambivalent interplay... of metaphor and practicality" in the language of German anti-Semitism and, indeed, in "German culture and language" (86). In other words, when rational argumentation and textual evidence fail, Mr. Rose simply reaches for a conveniently sweeping prejudice. His attempt to supersede Jacob Katz's sober-minded and contextually precise reading with a more radical one is, in my view, a failure. As far as I can see, Mr. Rose's reading of Judentum in der Musik" adds nothing 'VDas to his argument regarding the embeddedness of anti-Semitism in Wagner's operas. The conceptual scaffolding he has erected-from an ill-defined concept of German Revolutionism to the assertion of an ominous, infinitely exploitable ambivalence in the German language-is simply too weak to support his argument. What finally frustrates his efforts, however, is his method of interpreting (if that is the right word) the operas themselves.

rejects on his index but nearly everyone, including the Germanic gods in The Ring. Wotan and company, we are told, "have... been contaminated with Jewish characteristics of power, greed and domination" (68) and must therefore perish. Where Adorno cautioned that in Wagner "nothing is unambiguous,"12 Mr. Rose finds that nothing is less ambiguous than the antiSemitic agenda of Wagner's operas. Consider the strange case of Der fliegende Hollldnder. Mr. Rose declares that the use of this story has "a profoundly antisemitic implication" (38). On face value, this sounds intriguing enough, given the similarities between the figures of the Dutchman and the Wandering Jew. Since the Dutchman is clearly not a Jew, however, and since in the end he finds redemption from his curse, there does seem to be a problem here-but not for Mr. Rose, who takes the conclusion of the opera as a demonstration of the "incapacity of the Jewish Ahasverus to be redeemed" (38). Mr. Rose obviously wants to have it both ways. Not only was Wagner anti-Semitic--as he so flagrantly was-when he called for the "Untergang" of the Jews in the pamphlet of 1850, he was equally anti-Semitic when he represented the redemption of a non-Jew, that is, the Dutchman. Mr. Rose further claims that a certain "sub-text of 'money = Judaism' is implicit" (39) in the opera. Now, while it is true that greed and money-mindedness are stock motifs of the anti-Semitic Jacob Katz has refrained from offering mentality, it makes no sense to say that any any anti-Semitic readings of the operas; representation of greed automatically carwhether this, in and of itself, constitutes "a ries anti-Semitic implications. And what is sort of oblique vindication of Wagner" is the use of remarking that the poor inopen to debate.10 No such caution and com- habitants of Senta's Norwegian village mon sense have deterred Mr. Rose. He is stand for "the essential Jewishness of bourdetermined to go even beyond Theodor W. geois society" (17)? Adorno's famous indictment of Wagner. Equally farfetched is the claim regardAdorno claimed that "all the rejects of ing the "antisemitic content" (98) of Tristan und Isolde. Here, Mr. Rose's exhibit No. 1 Wagner's work are caricatures of Jews"rejects such as Alberich, Mime, Beck- is, of all people, the decidedly marginal figmesser, and Klingsor.11 In his desire to set ure of Melot, who is presented as the emnew standards of sensitivity to Wagnerian bodiment of "Jewish materialism and anti-Semitism, Mr. Rose places not only the hatred of the ideal, of love itself' (98). Fur-

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thermore, Mr. Rose wants us to see in the ly offended by the mean-spirited allusion to celebrated Wagnerian concept of "love- his name.15 In the final version, as everyone knows, death" a vision of redemption from "egotism and egoistic will" (171) and, hence, redemp- Wagner replaced the name Hanslich with tion from "eternal Judaism" (98). Here, the wonderfully echt sounding old German clearly, Mr. Rose is shooting from the hip. name of Sixtus Beckmesser.16 According to His charges are unsupported by any Mr. Rose, this is to be seen merely as ananalysis, and sound simplistic and im- other instance of Wagner deviously camouflaging his anti-Semitic designs. Mr. Rose's plausible. these examples show, Mr. Rose's use design is perfectly clear: he downplays the As of the term "antisemitic" must be charac- origins of Die Meistersinger because, in terized as undisciplined; it seems to be 1845, Wagner's relations to Hanslick motivated by a desperate determination to (whom he had just met at Marienbad where make Wagner yield, at all cost, his darkest the first draft was written) were perfectly secret--the secret of desiring the destruc- cordial. Furthermore-and most importion of the Jews. Such lack of discipline is tantly-Mr. Rose downplays the Mariento be regretted because it weakens Mr. bad draft because it predates by several Rose's case against Die Meistersinger von years Wagner's turn to anti-Semitic Revolutionism. What we have here, then, is a Niirnberg and against Parsifal--undoubtthe two most problematical cases we deliberate dimming of chronology to brightedly, must confront. en the Hanslick connection and, thereby, create an anti-Semitic aura around BeckIn Die Meistersinger, Mr. Rose finds the messer. Unperturbed by either the comanti-Semitism "quite crude"(111). With this plexity of the evidence or the secondary assessment, he leaves behind not onlyAdor- literature on this matter, Mr. Rose overtly no but also Barry Millington, the two declares that Beckmesser "was intended to authors from whom he takes most of his be a caricature" (111) of Eduard Hanslick clues-without, however, paying much and "a personification of the Jewish type" heed to their handling of the matter, which (112). In other words, one episode in the is considerably more circumspect than his. opera's genesis is taken to prove beyond any The trouble begins with the presenta- doubt that the opera has a hidden antition of the opera's genesis. Mr. Rose makes Semitic agenda. it sound as though the opera dates from the Mr. Rose is on more promising ground "years of Wagner's German political think- when he points to certain ominous elements in the characterization of the hapless suitor ing" (110), meaning the early 1860s--the period in which Wagner wrote, among other and singer. Wagner's Beckmesser fails to things, two intensely nationalistic essays, recognize and appreciate the manifesta"State and Religion" (1864) and "What is tions of true German art; he opposes WalGerman?" (1865-78). Mr. Rose knows, of ther's novel ways. And when, mischievouscourse, that the first, remarkably complete, ly, he is given a chance to shine with draft of the opera dates from 1845.13 But Walther's prize-song, he badly garbles it. he prefers the later date, because, in the Beckmesser, notwithstanding his distinsecond draft of 1861, Wagner gave the figure guished post as town clerk, is thereby of the Marker the name of Veit Hanslich-marked as an outsider, at least in the proan unmistakable and, indeed, crude swipe found ideological sense that matters here. at Eduard Hanslick, his most serious critic He is incapable of producing verses and at the time, whom Wagner took to be a melodies that sound natural to his echt GerJew.14 As expected, Hanslick attended a man contemporaries, and he seems to be reading of the draft in Vienna and was deep- constitutionally unable to scan German

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verse properly, as Sachs drives home so mercilessly. Moreover, his melodic inventions, experts assure us, resound with echoes of the Jewish cantorial style17--a hint, we must suppose, of his non-German traits. Does all this make of Beckmesser a caricature of a Jew--a simple embodiment of the traits listed in "Judaism in Music'? I think not. We know from Wagner's "Communication to My Friends" (1851),18 for example, that a certain anti-Semitic coloring of the figure of the as yet unnamed marker must have taken place in Wagner's mind shortly after he had written "Judaism in Music," i.e., before Hanslick began criticizing Wagner's music. It cannot seriously be argued, then, that Wagner's hostility towards Hanslick informs the allegedly anti-Semitic thrust of the Beckmesser character. Furthermore, what sounds to Mr. Rose--and to Barry Millington, for that matter-like an echo of the cantorial style has been persuasively shown by Egon Voss to be a parody of the old Italian style complete with "unnatural" scanning, mismatching of word and tone, and exaggerated melodic flourishes.19 Indeed, what Beckmesser misses in Walther's trial song--'-Koloratur" and "Melodei"--are both eminently Italian features. In this regard, in his concluding address to the people of Nuremberg, Hans Sachs warns not of Jewish influence but of "welscher Dunst" and "welscher Tand," meaning French and Italian influence. It is therefore unjustified and misleading to twist Sachs's words into anti-Semitic invectives, for what they represent is an urgent, though somewhat troubled, affirmation of cultural nationalism-a culture that seems as yet unsure of its own worth and dignity. Hence the fear of foreign influence. Nor is it reasonable to make too much of Beckmesser's "limping, shambling, and blinking" in his great scene in Act III.20At first sight, Wagner's stage directions seem to come from the arsenal of anti-Jewish stereotyping in "Judaism in Music." But a

more immediate reason for Beckmesser's limping and shambling is, of course, the beating he received the night before in the brawl on the streets of Nuremberg. And let us not forget, finally, that Beckmesser's misfortune is merely a temporary, not a permanent, affliction. His downfall begins when, as an aging bachelor, he decides to compete for the hand of the young daughter of the wealthiest man in town. In other words, his absurd pedantry and ridiculous comportment become apparent only when he succumbs to the "Kobold"of desire and turns, as Hans Sachs puts it in the "Wahn" monologue, into one of those erotically charged glowworms desperately seeking a mate. Until then, we have every reason to assume that Beckmesser lived the comfortable life of a citizen of Nuremberg, known for his erudition-Sachs calls him "hochunhagelahrt," highly educated-and rassed. As town clerk, he holds a position of great respect; as the marker of the guild of Mastersingers, he commands considerable authority in matters of music and poetry. In the end, after he has made a fool of himself, he is, to be sure, laughed off the stage. But he is not driven out of town. His future is left open; there is no reason to think that he will not maintain his position as town clerk. There is altogether enough evidence, therefore, to view Beckmesser as a modernized variant of the familiar figure of the old pedant. If this were an Italian opera buffa, he would simply be called "Dottore Beckmesser.'21 And if we look beyond the Italian operatic tradition, we can see behind Beckmesser, and, indeed, behind the whole configuration of Nuremberg types, the stock characters of the classical comedy of Menander, Plautus, and Terence. Wagner's figures generally tend to be diaphanous; behind their seemingly echt German exterior, we can perceive, as in a palimpsest, their original classical models. Thus Beckmesser, as M. Owen Lee has reminded us, may be viewed as a distant descendant of the classical miles gloriosus-"the ridiculously

FORUM overconfident braggart soldier" who hopes to win the girl.22 What informs Wagner's treatment of this character, therefore, cannot and should not in good conscience be attributed to anti-Semitic venom; it flows from a rich comic tradition. Operatic convention singles out the amorous old pedant for ridicule and abuse: the practice is perhaps cruel, but it is certainly not criminal, nor is it intrinsically anti-Semitic.

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young man, who happens to be coming down the road, shoots the bird, but then, apparently feeling sorry for the dead creature, decides, capriciously, to punish the Jew who made him kill the bird. The punishment is of an especially mischievous sort: with the aid of his magic fiddle, the young man makes the Jew dance in the prickly brambles where the dead bird had fallen. Eventually, the Jew is able to cut short his torment by buying his freedom There remains to be considered one with a "'wholebag of gold." The trick with more piece of evidence, which both Mr. Rose the fiddle that makes everyone dance is (112) and Barry Millington23 brandish as repeated at the end of the story. There, it the clincher in their arguments for an anti- authenticates the young man's story and Semitic reading of Die Meistersinger. In the proves that not he, as the judge had confirst "Stollen" of Walther's trial song, just cluded, but the Jew was lying when he after the screeching noises from the claimed that the lad had robbed him. Aside from the stereotype of money marker's booth are heard, Walther refers to someone hidden in a "Dornenhecke," a grabbing, the really crucial element in the thornbush. A little later, at the beginning of characterization of the Jew is his lack of the "Abgesang," Walther again refers to a musical appreciation. He resents the sing"Dornenhecke";however, in the uproar and ing of the bird, and he calls the young man confusion of the Act I finale, it is difficult to a "miserable musician" and a "beer-hall understand what he is saying. Ever since fiddler." In defending himself before the Adorno,24 Walther's repeated reference to judge, the young man explains that he came the "Dornenhecke" has been taken to be an into possession of the money quite properly: allusion to "Der Jude im Dorn," the Grimm the Jew could not "bear to hear" (vertragen) fairy tale variously translated as '"TheJew his music and gave him the money to stop among the Thorns," or 'The Jew in the fiddling. The judge finds the story unbelievable and decides to have the lad hanged for Brambles.'25 The narrative of this tale turns on the highway robbery. It is the magic fiddle, then, the symbol of music, that saves the opposition of an unnamed young manand obviously Germancheerful, honest, young man's neck and condemns the Jew to an older Jew with a long goatee, likewise to the gallows. The anti-Semitic animus of this fairy unnamed, but introduced as a "Spitzbube," that is, a crook. In the end, after havingbeen tale is plain to see. It is a tale right down tricked into admitting that he lied and that Wagner's darkest alley, emphasizing as it the money he had given the lad was stolen, does the two stock motives of his hostility the Jew is hanged. The title '"DerJude im towards Jews: their alleged money-mindDorn"refers to the first encounter of the two edness and their lack of musicality. There on a country road near a thorny bush. At is even some likelihood that, subliminally, that point, we find the word "Dornhecke"Wagner tied the story to the contemporary the obvious point of reference for Walther figure by whom his Jewish trauma seems in Die Meistersinger. Because the Jew to have been triggered: Giacomo Meyerresents the singing of a bird, as he cannot beer. The last part of Meyerbeer's name, endure the bird's "cruelly powerful voice," seemingly signifying '"berry," may easily be he calls for someone to "sprinkle salt on its associated with "Dornhecke," i.e., bramtail"--that is, to catch the bird for him. The bles.

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The temptation to pin the alleged antiSemitic agenda of Die Meistersinger on Walther's apparently calculated allusion to 'The Jew in the Brambles" is thus, obviously, nearly irresistible. Mr. Rose, for one, makes no effort to resist, asserting, with no reference to textual details, that there is a parallel between Beckmesser and the Jew of the Grimm fairy tale, and implying that the parallel is self-evident. Barry Millington, his chief critical ally here, is more cautious on this crucial point than Mr. Rose lets on. Millington notes correctly that the image of the "Dornenhecke" is used to characterize the allegorical figure of Winter.26 And indeed, it is Winter, not Beckmesser, who is said to be sitting in the brambles thinking of ways to stop the joyful singing of spring all around him. The point Adorno makes about this passage is both broader and more generalized. Adorno suggests that there is something emblematic in the fairy-tale figure of the lad making the Jew dance to the music of his magic fiddle-emblematic of the mischievous and cruel manner in which Wagner, as musician, treats all "rejects"among his characters.27 He finds, however, no allusion to Beckmesser in Walter's first image of the "Dornenhecke." Walther's second allusion to the "Dornenhecke," at the beginning of the "Abgesang," is to the hiding place of a flock of ravens who, stirred up by an owl, break forth screeching and croaking, while Walther projects himself into a bird rising on golden wings high above the noisy, vulgar ravens around him in order to return home, there to compose a proud love song in praise of his "dearest lady." If there is a polemical force to this imagery, it strikes the whole assembly of Masters who, with the exception of Sachs, dislike and reject Walther's trial song even before it is completed. That Walther satirically speaks of all the '"Meister-Kriih'n" underscores our point. Which is that Wagner's text simply does not permit us to narrow down the meaning of the "Dornenhecke" image to an attack on

Beckmesser. Do these distinctions, which are clearly called for by the poetic logic of the text, lay to rest all arguments about anti-Semitism in Die Meistersinger? Not quite. In order to get to the crux of this thorny issue-to the devious sophistication of Wagner's method here---we must make a further distinction between an overt and an implied referent. The overt referent in Walther's allusion to the Grimm fairy tale is Winter, the enemy of"Lenz," i.e., spring. On the surface, Walther simply continues here the allegorization of spring and winter that provides the dominant imagery of the trial song as a whole. It cannot be overlooked, however, that there is also an implied referent, namely Beckmesser, who, like Winter and the Jew, is sitting in his bush--or rather, boxresentful of the joyful singing outside. The allusion to "Dornenhecke"thus does indeed carry at least a subliminal barb against Beckmesser. It is crucial to see precisely how this intertextual element functions in the dramatic context before us. Clearly, the principals on stage find no aggressive implication in Walther's mention of "Dornenhecke." No one reacts-not Beckmesser, the implied target, not Sachs, the Master most sympathetic to Walther. The implication that Beckmesser is another "Jew in the Brambles" can therefore not be considered a part of the dramatic transaction on stage. The only circuit of communication in which the allusion to the fairy-tale Jew in the brambles really functions is that between the creator of Die Meistersinger and his audience, and it is only on this plane that the allusion to "Dornenhecke" unfolds its full intertextual force. Walther's trial song, like all of his poetic utterances, may be viewed as windows through which we can glance something of his psyche, including its subconscious content. As a matter of fact, Sachs himself-the central agent of Wagner's extraordinary self-consciousness in Die Meistersinger28-encourages such a reading when he explains to Walther (III:

FORUM 2) the nexus between'Traum" and "Weise," between the subconscious and the text. By using the "Dornenhecke" image-the result of Walther's profoundly characteristic and spontaneous improvisation29--one particular facet of his subconscious is brought out: his hostility towards Beckmesser.

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sounds more ominous than it is--namely, a metaphorical statement of what Beckmesser is doing to himself; in his hands, Walther's "Preislied"becomes his own"Galgenlied." In other words, Beckmesser hoists himself by his own petard. We must not overlook, however, that the Walther's subconscious aggressivity is by potentially anti-Semitic associations trigno means unmotivated, for he feels threat- gered by the image of'"Dornenhecke" have ened both as a poet and a lover. Later, no role in the action on stage. They are acWalther's implied hostility bursts out into tivated in the mind of the audience-an the open when he next encounters Beck- audience that must be familiar with the messer taking up position to serenade Eva: story of 'The Jew in the Brambles." The "Den Lung'rer mach'ich kalt!"But no racial latitude in which Wagner's intertextual factor is even hinted at. games can work is thus rather limited. This kind of indirect communication First, Beckmesser suffers neither literally over the heads of the protagonists is, of nor metaphorically the fate of the Jew in course, vintage Wagner. It is revealing to the Grimm fairy tale. Second, only listeners compare Walther's allusion to 'The Jew in who have that story at their fingertips will the Brambles" with Wagner's celebrated notice Wagner's subtle, nasty jab. It seems leitmotif, for they function in similar ways. reasonable to assume that Wagner, as he In Die WalkUre, Act I: 2, for instance, as wrote Die Meistersinger, could count on Siegmund recalls how he lost his father, it some like-minded people in the audience to is the orchestra that identifies him for the understand the allusion. Undoubtedly, in audience by stating the Walhall motif as- the long history of this opera on the German sociated with Wotan-a name unknown to stage, Wagner has found such an "underSiegmund. In similar fashion, Wagner slips standing" audience more often than we care a crucial bit of information past the pro- to know. tagonist's consciousness to the audience: This, however, should not and must not the enmity between Beckmesser and Wal- cloud our judgment. Contrary to Mr. Rose's ther, which is thereby likened to the Jew's hasty assertion, there is no justification for resentment towards the "cruelly powerful" charging Die Meistersinger with "crude singing of the bird. Once the association be- antisemitism." The one potentially antitween Beckmesser and the Jew in the Semitic element that can be detected in the brambles is established, however sub- opera functions, as we have seen, in a rather liminally, the whole chain of associations oblique, by no means crude, manner. Again, emanating from the Grimm fairy tale flood the anti-Semitic implication ofWalther's althe spectator's subconscious or conscious lusion to 'The Jew in the Brambles" is, understanding: the desire to punish the strictly speaking, not part of the musicoheckler and eventually, once established as dramatic action on stage; rather, it belongs a thief and purloiner of manuscripts, to to the subliminal communication between have him hanged. These subconscious as- Wagner and his audience. In other words, sociations receive a little boost in Beck- as the creator of Die Meistersinger, Wagner messer's garbling of Walther's prize song. rose effortlessly above his personal obsesHere, a seemingly disconnected and sense- sion with Judaism. In the hands of Wagner less image occurs: "h'ling'ich am Baum." the creator, as opposed to the pamphleteer, This image is immediately echoed by the his personal, indeed all too personal, flaw crowd at the Festwiese: "Bald hiingt er am became something else: a cypher for someGalgen! Man sieht ihn schon!"This actually thing universally human.

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The potentially anti-Semitic barb in Walther's trial song may thus be considered part of what is temporary and time-bound in Wagner--as something comparable to his stage directions. Neither is essential and sacrosanct. Just as Wagner's stage directions reflect the technical possibilities and theatrical conventions of his time, and need not constrain us today, so, too, does his intertextual game with the Grimm fairy tale reflect a historically dated and perishable conceit. 'Ibday,except for old Bayreuth diehards, no one feels bound, literally, by Wagner's stage directions. Modern productions that do not feature Wotan's ravens or Fricka's rams lose nothing of their authenticity and power, which reside in the music and the dramatic action. Likewise, productions that ignore the highly literary allusion to 'The Jew in the Brambles," as is nowadays the rule, lose nothing of their richness and integrity. No one can reasonably argue that a modern performance of Die Meistersinger, in which Beckmesser is portrayed simply as a comic figure, and without any traits of an antiSemitic caricature, would misrepresent the essence ofWagner's work. Mr. Rose's thesis, that anti-Semitism is embedded in the very fabric of Die Meistersinger, and that the allusion to the Grimm fairy tale provides incontrovertible evidence of some sinister ideological coding of the whole work, is untenable. Given Mr. Rose's agenda, it was to be expected that he would present Parsifal, the culminating work in the Wagnerian canon, as the capstone of a monumental, though cleverly disguised, anti-Semitic program. And indeed, in the hands of Mr. Rose, Wagner's quasi-religious parabel of compassion and renewal is resolutely turned into an allegorical struggle between Christianity and Judaism. Mr. Rose argues that the blood symbolism of the opera is to be read, not in a religious-mystical, but rather in a narrowly racial sense. He declares that "compassion" is meant as "a specifically

Aryan quality, one totally alien to the Jews" (164). Accordingly, "compassion and redemption have no application to the inexorably damned Judaized Klingsor and hence the Jews" (166). The opera's mystical last word, "Erl*sung dem Erl6ser," are painted in the most sinister colors, as though they represented a veiled call for the destruction of Judaism. Sadly, no consideration is given to the transcendent musical setting of these words that completely vitiates such a reading. Not to mention the fact, obvious from the context, that "Er16sung dem Erl6ser" can only refer to Parsifal, the redeemer, not to Amfortas or to "Judaized Christianity." The linchpin of this anti-Semitic reading of Parsifal is the figure of the evil sorcerer Klingsor. Mr. Rose has convinced himself that Klingsor "embodies the corruption of Judaized Christianity" (163). The possibility that Klingsor's banishment from the realm of the Grail might have something to do with his own troubled sexuality, that his evil is not racially but morally motivated, is nowhere seriously entertained. Klingsor's sometime servant Kundry is declared, on the flimsiest of evidence, to be a "Jewish witch" and "an instrument of Jewish corruption" (164). The fact that Mr. Rose turns the puzzling figure of Kundry into an instrument of evil is indication enough that he takes his clues not from the text but from some otherwise motivated compulsion. Even the killing of the swan, for which Parsifal is severely criticized by Gurnemanz, is here given an "ideological anti-Jewish underpinning" (165) since cruelty to animals and vivisection are somehow thought to be part of the Jewish corruption of Christianity. Here as elsewhere, Mr. Rose has dropped any pretense of actually dealing with the text of Parsifal; he seems to be moving in an orbit all his own. Perhaps Mr. Rose's most outrageous suggestion regarding Parsifal is that it "adds up to a measure of approval of a practical antisemitic political program"(154). In other words, Parsifal is the ultimate proof

FORUM that Wagner would have approved of the Holocaust. By connecting Wagner to Hitler through a sort of anticipatory carte blanche for any and all final solutions, Mr. Rose has reached the predetermined destination of his crusade. The section on Parsifal betrays an even starker lack of critical soundness and originality than Mr. Rose's treatment of the earlier operas. As anyone can see, he takes his ideas mostly from Gutman30 and Zelinsky,31 the most zealous proponents of a racial reading of Parsifal. Competent rebuttals by Carl Dahlhaus, Dieter Borchmeyer,32 and others are unfortunately dismissed or ignored--at a terrible price. Let me now try to summarize and to put my finger on what is most troubling about this book from a methodological and aesthetic point ofview. Frankly speaking, there is something seriously wrong with the way Mr. Rose reads texts. Time and again, he succumbs to a double fallacy to which any seasoned professional reader, one should think, would be immune: the biographical fallacy and the intentional fallacy. This book abounds in thoughts such as: Parsifal is "doubtless representing Wagner himself' (166), or Walther "is Wagner."The generally accepted belief that life and art cannot be connected in so direct and crude a manner simply does not trouble Mr. Rose. Nor is the problem of aesthetic autonomy allowed to interfere with his headlong rush to indictment after indictment. Once he has convinced himself that Wagner '"intended" this or that, he uses this intention as textual evidence. Thus, a statement such as "Beckmesser was intended as a personification of the Jewish type" is taken as proof of Beckmesser's essential Jewishness. On a larger scale, Wagner's anti-Semitism as such is assumed to validate Mr. Rose's central thesis that the composer's antiSemitism is embedded in the operas. Perversely, anyone who refuses to accept this clumsy equation is characterized as "intellectually naive" (26).

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Mr. Rose's fixation on intention--or rather on his own notion of Wagner's intention--can not substitute for a competent analysis of the operas. It is here that Mr. Rose's project suffers its final shipwreck. Musical evidence, even of the most basic sort, is not allowed to enter the picture; and what passes for literary analysis does not deserve the name. The results of such a critical steamroller are sad to behold. They are also easy to dismiss. To put it bluntly: What this book claims to have demonstrated-the covert anti-Semitic agenda of Wagner's operas--is in fact not demonstrated at all. But let us give credit where credit is due. Mr. Rose has produced something I have always considered impossible: a book on Wagner devoid of doubt and ambiguity. There is not a trace in this book of the painful complexity that has fueled the best of Wagner criticism from Nietzsche to Thomas Mann, and that is perhaps most poignantly encapsulated in the words of the late Leonard Bernstein: "Richard Wagner, I hate you, but I hate you on my knees."33 A final comment on this sad book: No one even superficially acquainted with the history ofWagner reception in the 20th century can fail to be struck by a terrible irony. Here, we have a passionately convinced advocate of the radical Israeli case against Wagner who seems unaware that his book in fact validates Adolf Hitler's self-serving claims about Wagner. Mr. Rose argues that Parsifal represents a call for racial purification--so did Hitler.34 Mr. Rose claims that Wagner's operas promote a sweeping antiSemitic program--so did Hitler. Mr. Rose suggests that Wagner was Hitler's forerunner and prophet-of this, Hitler was convinced. Adolf Hitler proclaimed that the spiritual sword of National Socialism was forged in Bayreuth-Mr. Rose's book attempts to flesh out Hitler's claim. Whether this undeniable affinity will strengthen or undermine the Israeli case against Wagner remains to be seen.

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Deep down, this book is marred by yet book's ultimate raison d'6tre, though a another troublesome flaw. It appears at the strong indication is provided in the appenvery beginning, in the introduction, and dix on '"Wagnerin Israer'; there, Mr. Rose surfaces repeatedly (86, 110, 155, 178, 183) informs us that the book was written with at crucial junctures in the book. Whenever the aim to help readers "understand the a particular point needs nailing down, but true necessity of continuing the ban" on the evidence is weak, Mr. Rose assures his Wagner. That necessity is derived from the readers that the difficulty results from a pe- "unique historical significance of Wagner's antisemitism" (181). The assumption culiarity--almost a moral flaw, it seems--of the German language. Writing, for ex- seems to be that the ban on Wagner has a ample, about "Deutschland, Deutschland rational basis and can be rationally jusiiber alles"--a poem by Heinrich Hoffmann tified. In his heart of hearts, however, Mr. written in 1841, and used from 1922 to 1945 Rose must know that Israeli sentiments as the national anthem35---Mr. Rose ex- about Wagner are rooted not in reason but plains: "German culture and the German in emotions--emotions that must be honlanguage are intrinsically ambivalent as to ored. It may well be, then, that this book whether physical or merely moral solutions are at stake" (3). Thus, the text of Hoff- should be viewed as an attempt to answer mann's "Lied der Deutschen" is said to har- a call from the deepest recesses of the soul bor both a "moral aspiration" and a "call to of Israel. We can catch a glimpse of it, I conquest." This lesson in ambiguity is ap- think, when we see Mr. Rose's speculation plied to Wagner with a vengeance. Accord- about the deeper reasons for Wagner's ing to Mr. Rose, Wagner's central idea of hatred of Judaism. "Wagner,"he astutely "Erl6sung," or redemption, always carries observes, "needed an analysis of Jewishthe sinister implication of physical destruc- ness to complete his definition of Germantion. This convenient and fantastic premise ness" (118). Are we not looking here at the works like magic. Mr. Rose calls on it when- mirror image of the same phenomenon? ever he needs it to show that "Erl6sung,"or Must we not see in this book---as well as in similar terms, have a hidden anti-Semitic Mr. Rose's earlier book on German antiSemitism36--an attempt to satisfy that meaning. of course, at the heart of very same need to define ever more sharply Ambiguity is, every language, not just German. When- one's own identity? It is an attempt, however and wherever we engage in a rigorous ever, that is sadly marred by some of the reading, we must examine the history of the very flaws that darkened Wagner's view of word and the context in which it is used. Jews and Judaism: prejudice and an unwillMr. Rose conveniently dispenses with this ingness to see the subtle coloring of the elementary task; instead, he invokes the other.37 "intrinsically ambivalent" character of the German language and then decides to Notes stress the sinister nuance of a given word. His reading of the concluding word of 1Paul Lawrence Rose, Wagner.Race and Revo"Judaism in Music"-"Untergang"--is, as we have seen, a particularly telling case in lution (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1992). References to this book will be given in parenthepoint. Examples of this sort inevitably cre- ses in the main body of my text. ate the suspicion that Mr. Rose's notions 2Leon Botstein, "Wagner and Our Century," about "German mentality and cultural Nineteenth CenturyMusic XI (1987): 92-104; 95f. tradition" (3) are based more on prejudice 3Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: than on fact. 1700-1933 (Cambridge: Harvard Anti-Semitism, One cannot help wondering about this UP, 1980).

FORUM
4Jacob Katz, The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism (Hanover and London: UP of New England, 1986) 4, 123, 129. 5For a succinct summary, see Ulrich Mfiller, "Richard Wagner und die Antike," RichardWagner-Handbuch, ed. Ulrich Mfiller and Peter Wapnewski (Stuttgart: Kraner, 1986) 7-18. 6Barry Millington, Wagner(Princeton:Princeton UP, rev. ed. 1992) 150ff. Millington, actually, is considerably more cautious, even more equivocal, than Rose allows; he speaks of "the work's alleged proto-fascist tendencies" (151), cites evidence that speaks "against a total identification [of Wagner] with the character of Rienzi in the irrational manner of a proto-Nazi"(152), and concludes that the "fascistic charge" cannot "be dismissed out of hand" (153). 7Katz, The Darker Side of Genius 120. 6 September 1850, 8Neue Zeitschriftf-irMusik? 112 (reprint 1963). 9Katz, The Darker Side of Genius 125. 10 Botstein, "Wagnerand Our Century"100. 11TheodorW. Adorno, In Search of Wagner, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: NLB, 1981) 23. 12Ibid.43. 13Cf.the new translation by Jane Ennis, "The Prose Drafts of 'Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg'," WagnerVIII (1987): 13-22. to 14According Peter Wapnewski, who cites an article in the Musikalisches Wochenblattof 1908, Hanslick was the grandson of a Prague banker, Salomon Abraham Kisch; his mother, Lotte, converted to Catholicism when she married his father. It seems, then, that Wagner simply "promoted" Hanslick to a Jew--a persona more commensurate to Wagner'shostility towards the influential critic. See Peter Wapnewski, Tristan der Held Richard Wagners (Berlin: Severin and Siedler, 1981) 48f. 150n Wagner and Hanslick, see Peter Gay, "For Beckmesser: Eduard Hanslick, Victim and Prophet," Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims ofModernist Culture (Oxford UP, 1978) 257-77; Wapnewski, Tristan der Held Richard Wagners33-49. 16Thename, like those of the other Masters, is taken from Johann Christoph Wagenseil's Vonder Meister-Singer Holdseligen Kunst (1697); on Wagenseil's role in the history of anti-Semitism, see Barry Millington, "NurembergTrial:Is there Antisemitism in 'Die Meistersinger?'," Cambridge Opera Journal III (1991): 247-60. 17Millington,"NurembergTrial"251ff. 18Richard Wagner's Prose Works, trans.

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William Ashton Ellis (rpt. NewYork:BrondeBros., 1966) 267-392; 328ff. 19See Egon Voss, "Wagners'Meistersinger' als Oper des deutschen Biirgertums,"Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg: Texte,Materialien, Kommentare, ed. Attila Csampai and Dietmar Holland (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981) 26f.; for an English version by Stewart Spencer of this important essay, see WagnerXI (1990): 39-62. 20Millington,"NurembergTrial"255. 21This aspect of the Beckmesser figure has been convincingly illuminated by Dieter Borchmeyer, Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre, trans. Stewart Spencer (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991) 271f. 22M. Owen Lee, "SomeMetaphors in the Text of 'Die Meistersinger'," Wagner in Retrospect:A Centennial Reappraisal, ed. with an introduction by LeroyR. Shaw et al. (Amsterdam:Rodopi, 1987) 63-69; here, 64f. 23Millington,"NurembergTrial"259. 24Adorno,In Search of Wagner21f. The Com25Grimm'sTales for Youngand (Garden City: plete Stories, trans. Ralph ManheimOld: Doubleday, 1977) 380-83. 26Millington,"NurembergTrial"259. In 27Adorno, Search of Wagner21. 28Cf.ibid. 41. 29See the chapter "Improvisation and Vocational Skill: The Poetics of 'Die Meistersinger',"in Borchmeyer,Richard Wagner:Theoryand Theatre 250-86. 30Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music (New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968). 31Hartmut Zelinsky, "Die 'feuerkur' des Richard Wagner oder die 'neue religion' der 'ErlSRichard Wagner:Wie sung' durch 'Vernichtung'," antisemitisch darf ein Kiinstler sein? (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1978) 79-112; "Rettung ins Ungenaue: Zu Martin Gregor-DellinsWagner-Biographie," Richard Wagner: Parsifal (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1982) 74-115. 32Borchmeyer,Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre 368-403. 33Leonard Bernstein, "Ich hasse ihn--auf meinen Knien! 'Ein Plfidoyer fir Richard Wagner',"trans. Albrecht Roeseler, Siiddeutsche Zeitung, 26 July 1992, 18. 34See Hermann Rauschning, Gesprdche mit Hitler (Vienna: 1973) 217f. 35Cf. Hermann Kurzke, Hymnen und Lieder der Deutschen (Mainz: Dietrich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1990) 42-53.

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36Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990). 37It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the help I have received from my friend and col-

league Peter Bloom, with whom I have had many conversations on Wagner, anti-Semitism, and music, and who graciously read and critiqued my paper. He is, of course, not responsible for any of the views expressed here.