Well Whadayaknow

A culture commentator who gets all his Wagner facts and commentary straight. New York Times culture commentator, Alan Riding, in his New York Times Sunday Book Review review of Jonathan Carr’s new book, The Wagner Clan, writes:

Is this how Richard Wagner should be judged: by his stormy life and by the oft abhorrent behavior of his family? Not in the view of true devotees of his music — and they are legion. Every summer, the lucky few with hard-to-get tickets traipse to Bayreuth in Bavaria for the opera festival that Wagner himself created in 1876. They enter the shrine of the Festspielhaus. They visit the composer’s grave. They are even welcomed by his octogenarian grandson, Wolfgang.

On the other hand, how can one ignore that this artist’s stirring music and anti-Semitic views were warmly embraced by Hitler, and that Wagner’s family identified his music with a Nazi regime that even the composer might have opposed?

[...]

Still, in Carr’s view, the past cannot be buried until the Wagner family admits it “made a terrible mistake.” Yet Wagner’s operas remain immensely popular, despite the sins of his family. And perhaps here lies the only shortcoming of “The Wagner Clan.” Carr has not tackled just what makes Wagner’s music so intoxicatingly dangerous. After all, without the music, the Wagners would have been just another family.

RTWT here.