In September last year in the cultural space of Israel, there was a serious scandal ‒ a passage from Richard Wagner’s opera “Götterdämmerung” (“Twilight of the Gods”) sounded on public radio.
The Israel Public Television and Radio Company and the editor personally apologized to the audience for such an unfortunate choice of musical composition. An official statement from the television and radio company said that the editor made a mistake in his artistic choice and in the future Wagner would not be on the air of Israeli radio.
According to one of the versions, similar to the legend, Wagner was banned in Israel in 1938, before the establishment of the state. In fact, there is no official ban. No one wrote orders, laws and papers with the words “To ban Wagner”. However, for some unspoken and unwritten laws of conscience, Wagner does not sound in Israel, and suddenly someone somewhere throws a passage, they will apologize for a long time. After all, people do not hear the beauty in the music of the killer.
Even if for the whole world Richard Wagner remains a genius composer, for Israel, he is a murderer. One of the instigators of anti-Semitism. The author of the work “Judaism in Music”, where all Jews have become oppressed, claiming that they are not capable of artistic expression. Hitler’s favorite composer. His music sounded daily in concentration camps. For thousands of people, it has become the sound of death. Therefore, one does not need to explain the value or the absence of the value of Wagner’s music for the Jews, there is no need to prove anything. Each cycle from Wagner’s opera returns them to the concentration camps.
The discussion about the “sounds of the world”, “music out of politics”, and “talent without borders” over the five got to the edge. This is during the first year the heart ached for every such dove of peace that flies without borders and without politics to carry one’s talent to the murderer. We loudly discussed the name of each of the guest-performers in Russia. And then it all just turned into statistics. One more, one more, one more ‒ and you silently delete songs from the playlist, hand over the tickets, throw away all from your music and information space. For a moment, you even stop tracking excuses or any statements. It’s simple: you went to the murderers ‒ you died. There’s no other way, no matter what a cool song you had, no matter the trident, you put on your chest later, ‒ you turn into Wagner in the Israeli Philharmonic.
Yes, of course, Kozlovsky didn’t shoot, Lorak didn’t bring the sabotage reconnaissance group to our positions, Maruv didn’t launch “Grad”. None of them did anything like that, everything was polite, the order, the concert, the music, the songs, “I can’t see your hands”, the fee, the tax from it to the Russian budget. It’s okay, really. Apart from the legitimization. After all, when he kills your relatives and countrymen ‒ he is an enemy, and when you sing him about love ‒ what does he become for you and for your fans?
So, with the exception of the Kozlovsky and Lorak cohorts, no one plays for Putin in the Kremlin. And in official excuses, it is said that there are ordinary people there, who want ordinary music and there is nothing political about it. But there is one thing. Not Putin personally shot down the Malaysian Boeing, he did not personally bombard the peaceful Mariupol, it wasn’t he himself, who killed thousands of our people. These were the bearers of his ideas, who here at this moment want “cool music that is beyond politics and borders”, and tomorrow they will support and justify killing the one, who brought this music to them, or they will go shooting in Donbas themselves.
Now music is a business, in which there is only business and money, and nothing personal. All right, but money never weighs against human lives. And no matter what fee the Russians have put in your pocket, no matter what trident you would put on your chest then, no matter what slogans you would shout then ‒ you are Wagner, you are the voice of the murderer, whose songs are not listened to in the house, where the victims are buried every day. That’s all. And no politics!
Tatusya Bo