All praise to Wotan, for creating commonsense real Americans who can get behind "South Pacific."One banner read: “Wagner: Loved by Nazis, Rejected by Humans.” Another said: “L.A. County: $14 Million to promote Nazi Wagner, Layoffs for Music Teachers.”
The protesters identified themselves as supporters for [sic] Lyndon LaRouche, the eccentric political activist and frequent presidential candidate who once led the U.S. Labor Party. The group handed out fliers published by the Schiller Institute, an organization founded by LaRouche’s wife, Helga.
The fliers denounced Wagner’s anti-Semitic personal views and criticized the county for rescuing the opera company. “Does Los Angeles County have nothing better to do … than bail out L.A. Opera, so that it can celebrate the monstrous sexual fantasies, and the cult of violence, of that vile anti-Semite, Wagner?” read the flier.
Stephen Rountree, who serves as chief operating officer of L.A. Opera and president of the Music Center, said in a statement that “dialogue is good and we welcome all conversations” in connection to the “Ring.”
In December, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved a $14-million loan to the opera company, which at the time said it was $20 million in debt. The loan is intended to help keep L.A. Opera afloat through mid-2010.
[...]
Brittany Gash of Inglewood was attending “South Pacific” at the Ahmanson Theater but stopped to survey the action. “I think the ‘Ring’ Festival is a sham,” she said. “I consider myself a music lover, but I don’t think Angelenos can relate to this production. It’s not an accessible piece for the public.”
Joke: Combine "accessibility" & "mentally handicapped." Also, laugh at "Brittany Gash."
4 comments:
Ha ha, "Bittany Gash". You couldn't make that one up.
P.
Journalism Editor Har-rumphs:
Hope the reporter confirmed it.
We could make up "Brittany Spears Gash," but that would be typical.
“Wagner: Loved by Nazis, Rejected by Humans.”
In fact they banned or discouraged performances of his music. You could look it up. As my mate Laon notes:
"You can, for example, remember that the Nazi Party hierarchy much preferred Beethoven; that Liszt was the composer used for the signature tune for Nazi broadcasts; that Hitler’s favourite composer in the end was not Wagner but Lehar; that the Nazis banned Parsifal in 1939, principally because of the pacifist content, though Goebbels also complained that it was “too pious”; that they asked for no further productions of the Ring cycle after 1942 (it seems Wagner’s message finally got through: people who seek power lose everything they love, and the ability to love; and they experience ignominious downfall); and that immediately after the Nazis taking power, and control of the operatic repertoire, performances of Wagner opera reduced in number.
"This withdrawal of Wagner from the German operatic repertoire continued and accelerated throughout the Nazi period, 1933-1945. The operatic composers who lost favour under the Nazis were (1) Wagner, followed by (2) Mozart. The composers who rose in frequency of performance while the Nazis controlled the opera houses were (1) Lortzing, and (2) Puccini. Verdi also did well. I don’t think this was really because the Nazis understood Wagner’s messages enough to see how hostile they were to their enterprise. It was more that his operas were complex, hard, and made people think: their disappearance from the repertoire was part of a general dumbing down of culture under Nazi rule."
From The Sloth Desk:
Footnotes! Our work here is done.
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