SKU: HL.50605479

ISBN 9781705190395. UPC: 196288126164.

Text in Italian. Can the greatness of one of the most important musicians of the western world justify the most ignominious positions taken? And above all: can he justify ignoring them? The manifestation of these positions unfortunately leaves no doubt: we can read them both in his writing Jewishness in music (1850) and in other texts collected in this book in new translations, as well as in an unpublished text for Italy. But can it be said that the librettos and even the music of Wagner's operas are also anti-Semitic? Wagner's anti-Semitism is at least a controversial topic in the specialist literature: in this book you will find both a critical and a polemical balance, in which the criteria of biographical research, general history, music, musicology, semiology, of psychoanalysis and aesthetics. How to explain it? With the fact that perhaps Wagner himself was a Jew? Many of his contemporaries believed this, as the large collection of caricatures brought together in this work testifies. At the end of a rigorous investigation, it is necessary to ask some disturbing questions: should the execution or representation of Wagner's works perhaps beprohibited? Should Bayreuth be closed down?