GERMANY: Israeli choreographer Saar Magal stages controversial Wagner production in Munich

Record ID: 397451

  • Title: GERMANY: Israeli choreographer Saar Magal stages controversial Wagner production in Munich
  • Date: 26th July 2012
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ISRAELI CHOREOGRAPHER SAAR MAGAL SAYING: "To say that you don't like Wagner in Germany, people look at you as if something is wrong with you. Like if you would say I don't like Mozart or I don't like Bach, it's fine. But then if you said I don't like Wagner, what's wrong with you, right? And the piece also examines this monumentalism of Wagner on the
  • Embargoed: 10th August 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAPG740YWRK1WX1QHZ6GEFIK80
  • Story Text: Saar Magal has taken a stick to a wasps nest: an Israeli choreographer staging Wagner in Germany is a guarantee for controversy at home but Magal has gone one step further, also openly criticizing the attitude of Israel towards the plays and music of Wagner.
    Richard Wagner's anti-Semitic views and the association of his works with Nazism have made his music anathema to many Israelis. Concerts and operas of the composers are still unofficially banned.
    But now Magal wants to break with this unofficial ban.
    The work, provisionally named "The Misinterpretation of the Ring, or Hacking Wagner," is being produced by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and will premiere in July at the city's "Haus der Kunst", a monumental building erected by the Nazis in the 1930s. The location was not chosen incidentally, Hitler staged some of his monumental propaganda shows there.
    The performance does not put the artists on a stage but among the audience. There they dance, take the audience's chairs, roll on the floor or caress a VW beetle. The performance starts with video sequences of the Israeli and German art scene's perception of Wagner.
    In Israel, Wagner has become a symbol of the Nazi regime without separating the music from the man. But many, especially young people are wary of the fact that a democratic state bans classical music - whatever the reason may be.

    "This discussion is still on. The argument is still on," the choreographer told Reuters. "It's not something that has to do with the past. It's something that has to do with now. And that's why it is very important for us to open this discussion because in a way it's easier to ban art than to ban German brands and industrialists that collaborated with Nazi regime."
    At the same time Magal wants to highlight the cult around Wagner in Germany that might be looked upon strangely if seen from the outside.

    "To say that you don't like Wagner in Germany, people look at you as if something is wrong with you," the young choreographer said. "Like if you would say I don't like Mozart or I don't like Bach, it's fine. But then if you said I don't like Wagner, what's wrong with you, right? And the piece also examines this monumentalism of Wagner on the German side."
    Even before the premiere Magal has been heavily criticised in her home country. Many Israelis accuse her of provocation, especially for the many Holocaust survivors living in Israel Wagner is a insult. But that is not how she sees it. Magal come form a family of Holocaust survivors and her grandparents support the project. "We were asking them how they feel about it. And they told me first that music is music, and that if they would have to ban all the anti-semitic 19-century composers then they would have been left with very few composers they could actually listen to," Magal said.
    She criticises that there are a lot of people who claim to speak in the name of the Holocaust survivors. "But nobody is really asking them anymore how they feel about it and how they feel about the ban," Magal says.
    The choreographer hopes that the project will also get to be staged in Israel. She is looking for a partner that would be brave enough to bring the piece to Israel. But whether that will break the unofficial ban of Wagner in Israel remains to be seen.
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