That’s One Burden Too Many for Wagner and His ‘Ring’

Mark Swed’s review of the San Francisco Opera “Ring” cycle states that “it is the ultimate example of manipulative entertainment that coaxes disturbed minds toward violence,” and credits “The Nibelung’s Ring” for grounding Hitler’s Nazi notions (“Resonant, but No Real ‘Ring’ of Originality,” June 18). Swed also states that the evil dwarf Mime was intended by Wagner to be an “undermining Jew.”

Swed is relating the conventional wisdom that since Wagner was a noted anti-Semite who wrote essays attacking Jews and Judaism that anti-Semitism must be reflected in his music. Thirty years ago, Robert Gutman, in his book “Richard Wagner, the Man, His Mind and His Music,” set forth this same view in great detail. But it is only a theory, and one that has most recently been challenged by Jacob Katz of the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem in his 1986 book “The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner’s Anti-Semitism.”

Katz notes that Hitler and the Nazis appropriated Wagner’s works as a prophetic anticipation of their own worldview, and that postwar critics have followed suit by seeing Wagner’s anti-Semitism as the key to understanding his art. But as Katz points out, “In fact, without forced speculation, very little in the artistic work of Wagner can be related to his attitude toward Jews and Judaism.” In short, Katz holds that Wagner’s music is untainted by his anti-Semitism.

As for coaxing people toward violence, the entire story of the cycle is that the lust for power and dominion, as exemplified in the Ring itself, leads all who possess it to destruction. Not an attractive message for power- and violence-seekers.

My wife and I have seen some two-dozen complete performances of “The Ring,” along with performances of all the other major Wagner operas. We confess to being Jewish Wagnerites, repelled by the man but seduced by his art, fully aware of his anti-Semitism, but not burdening him with the horrible deeds of Hitler.

CARL PEARLSTON, Torrance

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I am a passionate lover of music, something that rarely came across in Swed’s review of “Das Rheingold” and “Die Walkure,” which he calls “The Rhinegold” and “The Valkyrie” (June 12). Readers of music criticism care for more than just snippy dismissals and vague generalities about singers.

And looking at the hundreds of operas lining my wall, not one of them feels the need to list the title of a foreign-language opera in English only. In fact, I cannot remember The Times doing so with “La Traviata” or “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Mr. Swed, please do your readership a favor. We are not ignorant and we deserve criticism worthy of the work it criticizes.

SCOTT A. SMITH, Los Angeles

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Mark Swed replies: The Times’ increasing use of English titles of foreign-language operas may sometimes strike opera lovers as odd, but we have adopted the policy in our efforts to be accessible to a broad public. We have also done so because opera companies themselves are presenting the works more and more with English titles.

Some operas, such as “La Boheme” or “Lucia di Lammermoor,” are so familiar that their original titles have been common parlance. Some titles, such as “Cosi fan Tutti,” are untranslatable. But where feasible, we will translate, and when it seems necessary, say with “Twilight of the Gods” (“Gotterdamerung”), we will also provide the original title in parentheses.