Jascha Nemtsov on the Bayreuth Wagner cult: “Our society is heavily influenced by hypocrisy”

Mr. Nemtsov, you have made various and always critical comments about the Bayreuth Wagner cult. Most recently, you called for a fundamental departure from the Wagner canon at the festival. What excites you about this topic?
I’m a musicologist and I research Jewish music – there’s a certain overlap in topics.

Wagner wrote this horrible text as early as 1850…
“Judaism in Music,” later numerous other anti-Semitic writings. I also research directly into Wagner and Bayreuth. This is because I consider Wagner to be a special case in the history of music and, far beyond that, in European intellectual history.

 

By Editor