Patrick Bade
Jewish Characters in Opera

Patrick Bade - Jewish Characters in Opera

- [Judy] Well, hi. Hello again, Patrick, and hello to everybody who’s joining us today. Patrick, I’ll hand over to you.

• Thanks, Judy. I’m going to talk this evening about how Jews have been represented in operas over the centuries, and basically there are two categories, the biblical and the post biblical. The biblical characters are generally awarded what might be termed honorary Aryan status, before anybody writes in to complain about my use of that term, yes, I do know it was used by the Nazis, and it does have sinister connotations, and I’m using it deliberately. So the heroes of the Bible are presented as proto Christians, and they’re presented in a very positive way with no trace of anti-Semitism. It’s different when we come to Jewish characters from post biblical times, here it’s much more complex, and they’re likely to be depicted in a negative way, largely negative, I would say, and with some elements of anti-Semitism.

On the screen you’ve got was Moses by Michelangelo with his horns, which of the result of a… of course, mistranslation. And on the right, the very interesting but very complicated character of Eleazar in “La Juive” by Halévy. Now, Handel set a great many biblical heroes to music. By the 1730s, the craze for Italian opera had faded and they were just too expensive to put on. So he turned to oratoria where, which was a lot less costly because they were presented in concert performance rather than stage. And also you didn’t need to, as it was in English. These oratories were in English. You didn’t need to import expensive Italian singers. But essentially these oratories are operas. There’s really not much difference in these days.

The oratories are very likely to be presented as operas. They’re staged. So I’m starting with an excerpt from Solomon, which was first presented in an opera house. It was presented at Covent Garden in 1749. Of course, it deals with the great wise King Solomon of the Jewish Bible. Interestingly, recent scholarship has suggested that the librettist himself was Jewish, a man called Moses Mendez, who you see on the right hand side. So in this little excerpt, it’s, I suppose the mo… It’s the famous judgement of of Solomon when the two women came claiming the same child. And through by, well, you know the story, so I don’t need to repeat the story. Here is this musical excerpt from Handel’s “Solomon.”

• Handel also set Samson to music. The story of Sampson and Delilah with its seduction and betrayal and its violence is an ideal one for opera. And it was set once again in the 19th Century by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, it took a while to get going. It’s first performed in 1877, not performed in France till the 90s, not performed at Covent Garden on stage, at least until ‘99, because there was actually a ban on staging biblical subjects. But then it, after that, of course, it became tremendously popular. And I’m going to play you Samson’s Aria from the last act when he’s lost his hair and had his eyes gouged out, and he prays to God for final strength to bring down the the heathen temple.

But, so this is an excerpt from I think the finest recording of this opera, dates back to 1946 with the Corsican tenor José Luccioni as a very thrilling and heroic sounding Samson. A rather unusual biblical subject for an opera is Saul and Jonathan by the National Composer of Denmark, Carl Nielsen. He wrote two operas, “Saul and David,” and “Maskarade.” “Maskarade” is sort of considered the national opera of Denmark and occasionally gets wheeled out. It was done at Covent Garden a few years ago, “Saul and David.” It’s a wonderful score, a very, very beautiful piece of music, but is extremely rarely done outside of… This is Carl Nielsen after a performance in the 1930s. But the opera dates back to 1902, and I think it is probably more often done as a concert piece than as a stage opera. As I said, the score, the very beautiful one, very moving actually. And I’m going to play you the final scene when David is mourning for both Saul and Jonathan. Now, of course, Moses is a very important figure in, for Christians as well as for Jews, and has been represented many, many times in Western art, famous Michelangelo statue on the left, there’s Rembrandt on the right, on the right here is Poussin’s “Striking the Rock.” And on the left, I have shown this before.

It’s a drawing I bought in Paris last year by a French 19th century academic artist called Melchior Doze. I think it’s an exquisite drawing. I’m thrilled to have it. And I have it now in my bedroom in London. This is, so the Rossini wrote his opera, “Moses in Egypt” quite early in his career. It was presented in 1818 in Naples. And then a decade later it was expanded for a production in Paris. It’s usually the Paris production, Paris version that’s gets done. As a whole, it’s not performed all that often, but there’s one piece which became very famous, and that is towards the end of the opera when Moses and the other Hebrews pray to God for deliverance. And it was a piece that really struck a chord in Italy in the first half of the 19th century with Italy, not yet a united country, in many parts under the rule of foreigners, particularly in the North, ruled by the Austrians. So the Italians very much identified with the captivity of Jews in Egypt and in Babylon. They saw themselves as in a similar situation. So this is a performance, must be in the 1920s, I think. And you can see Pietro Mascagni, he’s the only one not in costume who must have conducted it. And I’m going to talk more about him later. In fact, I’m going to finish with him. But I want to play you this very beautiful prayer of Moses and the Jewish people, and I’m going to play it to you in a very special performance. This was the much heralded and feted return of Arturo Toscanini to Italy after the Second World War. He’d been in exile. He’d been driven into exile by Mussolini and his thugs.

Of course, Toscanini was the most celebrated conductor in the world. He’d started off actually being a member of the Fascist Party, even standing for election as a fascist. But he soon got wise to it and realised what a bad thing fascism was. And straight away he understood how terrible Nazism was, and he denounced them. And he was actually, I would say, the most prominent cultural figure to really stand up against the fascists and the Nazis. He was a real thorn in the flesh for both Mussolini and Hitler. So during the latter part of the war, La Scala, the sacred temple of Italian Opera was severely damaged by Allied bombs. Of course, it was one of the very first buildings to be reconstructed. And Toscanini was invited back to Italy to inaugurate the restored opera house. And he did so with this concert, which was broadcast and has been preserved. And I’m going to play you the “Moses’ Prayer” from Rossini’s “Moses in Egypt” from this live performance on Saturday, the 11th of May, 1946. At the end, you might just have detected the voice of the very young Renata Tebaldi, not yet famous, but Toscanini heard her and he exclaimed, “Ah, it’s the voice of an angel!” Now, “The Prayer,” from “Moses” inspired an even more famous chorus, which is “Va, Pensiero”, from Verdi’s Nabucco, which has become the unofficial national anthem of Italy. And it will, Italians abroad, when they hear this, a tear will come to their eyes. And there’s a very extraordinary story behind the composition of this chorus, which again, is a lament for the imprisoned and oppressed Jewish people this time in Babylon rather than in Egypt. And it’s from Nabucco, which was Verdi’s third opera, his first opera, “Oberto” was a modest success at La Scala in 1839.

And that was followed by, “Un Giorno di Regno,” which inexplicably, I’ve heard it several times, and it’s a very delightful opera, was a total, total flop, disastrous flop. It was taken off almost immediately. And this coincided with personal tragedies, in Verdi’s life, the death of his first wife and their two infant children. And he was deeply depressed, understandably, and very, very disillusioned. And he decided to give up any thought of a career as a composer to go back to his hometown of Busseto. And he, this is how Verde tells it, and who knows whether it’s strictly accurate or not, but it’s a great story. He was walking down the street and the director of the La Scala approached him and he said, “I have a libretto that I want you to set,” which was a libretto for Nabucco. He had previously offered it to Nick Flotow, the composer of “Martha.” And one can’t even begin to imagine what kind of opera would’ve come out of that. But a lot of, quite understandably realised he was utterly unsuited to write that subject. And he rejected it. So La Scala was left with a problem and a gap. Verdi said, “No, no, I don’t, that’s it. I’m not interested.” And the director thrust the libretto into Verde’s pocket. And according to Verde, he went home and he threw it on the floor in disgust, and it opened up on the page with the text for the chorus “Va, Pensiero,” this great lament of an oppressed people.

Of course Verde was passionately, passionately patriotic. And like so many people at this time, he was longing for a country for his people. And so he, apparently, this was the first thing he wrote from the opera, this wonderful mournful melody of the oppressed Israelites. And here it is. Now we get to our first post biblical Jewish character, and that is Eleazar, from Fromental Halévy’s opera, “La Juive,” which was presented in Paris in 1835. And for a good a hundred years was really, you know, absolutely core to the French operatic repertoire. Interestingly, Heine was not impressed. Heine said that that Halévy was a competent composer without a trace of genius, whereas Wagner, unexpectedly, loved it and praised it to the skies. In his comments on it, they’re completely free of the anti-Semitism of his comments on other Jewish composers like Mendelssohn and, Meyerbeer. It’s an epic. It’s not done very often these days, I think probably because it must be a very expensive opera to stage with crowd scenes and lots of spectacle. And of course you need a heroic tenor.

The story is of… Eleazar, is, as I said, a rather complex character. I think he must be directly inspired by Shylock ‘cause he’s somebody who’s torn between love and hate, and he has great love for his daughter Rachel, who actually turns out not to be his daughter. She turns out to be the daughter of his bitter enemy, Cardinal de Brogni, who, at the end of the opera has Rachel boiled alive. And as she dies, Eleazar finally reveals that she is the daughter of the Cardinal. 'Cause Cardinals aren’t supposed to have daughters. But I’m not quite sure if that is explained or not in the opera plot. I’m going to play you two excerpts from this opera, first of all, from the Passover scene. And I wonder really what Orthodox Jews would think of this, actually. I’m sure they’ll be against the whole idea of opera and of certainly the representation of Jews in opera and of all, the representation of a religious ceremony on stage in an opera house. But this, I think this is very beautiful, this scene.

And this is from a live performance with the American Jewish tenor, Richard Tucker. His real name was Ruben Ticker. And this was his great starring role. Lovely Japanese soprano Yasuko Hayashi with a really italianate sound, almost a sort of Tebaldi-like sound. Now, the role of Eleazar is an extremely challenging one, vocally. It needs a big heroic sound and it’s also a challenging role, interpretively. As I said, he’s a very, very complex character with good and evil mixed in together. It’s almost really a French equivalent of Verdi’s Othello. And the greatest tenors have wanted to sing it. And the greatest of all was Enrico Caruso. And it was actually the last major role that he took on in the very last year of his life. And he took it extremely, extremely seriously. Caruso had very close relations with the Jewish community in New York, and he went to them for help in really trying to understand the character of Eleazar and trying to understand Jewish culture. And he went to synagogues to attend services and he really, it was almost like, you know, later method acting.

He absolutely got into the role, to the point where he made this bronze relief sculpture self-portrait of himself in 1920, the year before he died in the role of Eleazar. So I thought, I have to play you some Caruso in Eleazar’s big aria, “Rachel, quand du Seigneur.” This voice of absolutely astonishing richness and smoothness reminds me of a beautifully bowed cello. Now I get to a rather controversial and difficult subject, really. And that is whether the Wagnerian characters of Beckmesser, Alberich and Mima are meant to be malicious caricatures or Jews or not. There’s a, very intense and sometimes quite ill-tempered debate around this subject. So first of all, Beckmesser in “Meistersinger.” Well, there’s no doubt that Beckmesser is a caricature of a particular person. And that was the leading music critic of Vienna in the 19th century, Eduard Hanslick, who’d given Wagner a very hard time. He was very harsh on Wagner. I think he was a bit of a twit. Even Brahms, who was supported by Hanslick, I think had very little time for him. And he’s quite acerbic about him in his letters.

Now, Hanslick was half Jewish on his father’s side, so not recognised as a Jew by Jews and actually brought up as a Catholic. So, you know, whether he’s, he’s only a Jew really according to Nazi or ideology, you know, this new type of anti-Semitism that was developed in the end of the 19th century. When Meistersinger was first performed in Vienna, the audience hissed at the scene where Hanslick sings his serenade. 'Cause apparently many people thought that the music was a parody of Jewish liturgical music. I can’t really offer an opinion on this. Some of you may have a more informed opinion and I’ll play this to you and see whether you think this sounds at all to you like Jewish liturgical music or, and if indeed that that is Wagner’s intention to parody that kind of music. Now in the “Ring Cycle,” the question is whether the Nibelungen are meant to represent, if they’re meant to be Jewish characters, if they’re seen as Jewish characters. I did touch on this recently in my talk on German opera, and there’s no doubt that in early productions, late 19th, early 20th century productions, the productions of “The Ring,” and in illustrations of the period like the Arthur Rackham on the right-hand side, that the Nibelungen, Alberich and Mimir are shown as sort of caricature Jews with ridiculous noses and so on.

And I also feel that Alberich with his greed, there’s Mimir who’s this wily whining character who it conforms to a certain negative stereotype of Jews in the 19th century. I can’t quite get away from this, but anyway, I’ll be interested. I’m sure there’ll be very differing opinions at the end about, on this particular subject. But here is the great Julius Patzak undertaking the role of Mimir and certainly giving it a very nasty, whingey, whiny tone. This is an image of a scene in Strauss’s opera “Salome” based on Oscar Wilde’s play first performed in 1905, where there are five Jews quarrelling about theology. And I actually heard somebody on the radio a couple of years ago accusing Strauss of anti-Semitism because of the way he depicts the Jews in this scene where they all talk over one another, they all talk at the same time. Well, I’ll say a couple of things about that. Firstly, of course, that’s not Strauss, that’s Oscar Wilde. Strauss is just setting Oscar Wilde’s words. And secondly, I think I can say as somebody who’s sat on many committees for the London Jewish Cultural Centre over the years, that it’s actually not unknown for five Jews to speak at once and to talk across one another. And it’s not necessarily an anti-Semitic thing to say that. There’s another story I’d like to tell you about this scene.

It was put on in New York in the 1940s as a vehicle for the great Bulgarian soprano Luba Velich. And it was Fritz Reiner conducting, he was of course a Hungarian Jewish composer and conductor. And he was an absolute monster for accuracy. And he was a real, real terrible martinet and a bully, actually, as a conductor, as many conductors were in those days. And this scene is extremely complicated 'cause you’ve got these five singers all singing at once. And he, Fritz Reiner rehearsed the scene all day long, people, everybody was absolutely exhausted and wrung out. And towards the end of the day he thought, yes, yes, he got it right. So he announced to audience, “Ze Jews can go now!” and apparently the entire violin section of the orchestra got up and walked out. So here is that scene with the five Jews all talking at once. Now the question, was Strauss anti-Semitic? Well, I’m quite sure that it would be possible to find evidence for that in his letters, casual remarks. And he was a famously tactless man. But my feeling is that by the standard of the time, he was remarkably free of anti-Semitism that, you know, the people that he really, really loved working with, Max Reinhardt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Stefan Zweig, were more often than not Jews.

And there is this very odd little moment I’m going to play you from his opera “Intermezzo” which is an autobiographical opera. It’s about an incident in his marriage to the dreadful, bossy Paulina Strauss and in this scene, he’s just left to go on tour, on a conducting tour, and there’s a discussion between his wife Paulina played by Lotte Lehmann in the premiere, which you see, left, and the maid. And the wife, she says, “Oh, why is he always travelling?” And the the maid says, “Well, I think the Herr is is not too happy remaining in one place for any time.” And then “höhnisch”, so kind of angrily, Christine says, “I think he’s got Jewish blood in his veins.” So I mean, that’s a very, I mean, Strauss is writing about himself. It’s probably a good thing for his safety that this opera actually didn’t really enter the repertoire. At least they dropped out of the repertoire before the Nazis came to power in 1933. So here’s just a piece. You know, you don’t need to hear it. So now I’m coming to a very little-known opera although I think it’s an opera I would love to see at stage. I think it’s a wonderful opera. It’s by Feruccio Busoni and it’s his opera, “Der Brautwahl”, “The Bridal Choice.”

And this was presented before the First World War, I think it’s 1905. And it’s based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann on a tale of Hoffman whose tales of course inspired the Offenbach opera. sort of folkloric anti-Semitism in these stories of E.T.A. Hoffman different from the anti-Semitism that appeared in the late 19th century. And there is this character called as a Jewish character, called Manasse. And he has supernatural powers. And this is of course one of, Judy’s talked about this so often with you, this belief that that that Jews are incredibly powerful or have supernatural powers. And in this scene, Manasse, he feels he’s been tricked or defeated and he offers terrible curses as you can see here. And here, the music quite definitely does reference, I say a sort of orientalist element in Jewish liturgical music. This is Rachmaninoff, “Miserly Knight,” which was premiered in 1906. Of course Rachmaninoff wrote only a small number of operas right at the beginning of his career. And this has never been very successful.

It’s a difficult opera to stage, has no female characters. I have only seen it performed in concert form at a prom a couple of, few years ago. And I think now it would really be problematic because there are three main characters. There’s an aristocrat, a miserly aristocrat, of course he’s Christian, and his dissolute son and an evil Jewish money lender. You see the three of them standing behind the seated Rachmaninoff. I think it’ll be difficult. I remember being quite shocked actually, when I heard it at the proms, the character of the Jewish moneylender is, must be by long shot, the most unpleasant representation of a Jew in the history of opera. But again, it’s Rachmaninoff… This is not Rachmaninoff who’s created this. It’s Pushkin. Rachmaninoff set, very literally, word for word, a text of a Pushkin poem for this opera. And the only thing I can say in favour of both Pushkin and Rachmaninoff is that all three characters are absolutely vile. It’s not that, you’re not presented with an evil Jew and virtuous Christians. The three characters are all evil. They’re all equally vile. The other thing I’d like to say about Rachmaninoff is of course he was born into the Russian aristocracy. So he will have imbibed anti-Semitism with his mother’s milk or say the milk of his wet nurse. That was part of Russian culture.

But if you look at Rachmaninoff’s life, even actually far more than Strauss, I can hardly think of anybody who is important to Rachmaninoff in terms of his career and his personal life, well, not his wife, but his mistress, who you see in the middle there, a wonderful singer, Nina Koshetz, she was Jewish and pretty well, all of the, the great musicians who were his inner circle of friends and who he worked with were Jewish through his, out his life. So I can’t believe that anti-Semitism was an important part in his nature. But let me see, we’re running out of time. So actually I think I’m not going to, it’s an unpleasant scene, not very attractive musically. So I think I’m going to skip it and go on to “Il Dibuk.” This was by a successful Italian composer of the interwar period called Lodovico Rocca. And the opera was premiered at La Scala in 1934. And it’s of course the very famous Jewish legend of the Dibuk, the dead person who comes back from the dead to possess a living person that he has loved. It’s the same, there’s a famous movie actually made a couple of years later, and I’m going to play you a short excerpt of the original cast with the Dibuk coming back to take possession of the soul of the young woman.

It was a tremendous success. It was probably the most performed opera by a contemporary, a living composer in Italy between 1934, and then of course, 1938, Mussolini imitates Hitler and introduces race laws, at which point the opera was kind of banished from repertoire and has never, sadly, never come back again. It’s an opera I would love to see staged. So here we have images of Proust on the left hand side and Reynaldo Hahn on the right. In the 1890s when they were the Golden Boys of the Salon scene in Paris. They were considered, they were lovers actually, and lifelong friends thereafter. But you know, every Salon wanted them as a kind of ornament because Proust was so charming and so witty with his conversation, and Reynaldo would sit at the piano and sing his exquisite songs. And that’s, I suppose, that’s still what he’s best known for. The songs are still absolutely core repertoire for anybody who sings French art songs and wonderful, wonderful songs. He did write at several stage works, which were not quite so successful. Both of these two young men, by the way, were what the Nazis would’ve called Halbjude, Half Jews. In the case of Proust, his mother was Jewish and his father was French Catholic. And the case of Reynaldo Hahn, his father was German Jewish and his mother was Spanish Catholic. Both were brought up as Christians, but both had an incredibly strong sense of their Jewish heritage. And courageously, both of them risked their brilliant social careers in the 1890s by coming out very strongly in favour of Dreyfus, which meant immediately they were dropped from certain aristocratic salons.

So Reynaldo Hahn is, I suppose, better known for the lighter news, I mean, he wrote operettas, but his most successful stage work was “Ciboulette,” but he longed to write a serious opera. And it was really over a period of 20 years that he worked on a version of “The Merchant of Venice.” And this was first performed in 1935 with the great French singing actor baritone Andre Pernet. And here he is in an excerpt from his big monologue, famous monologue of course, from the Merchant of Venice, where he expresses his hatred for Antonio. Now I want to end on a happier note. And that is, I suppose there’s only one I can think of, I’m sad to say, the one really totally positive representation of a Jew in an opera in the standard repertoire, and that is in Pietro Mascagni’s “L'amico Fritz” It was the follow up to “Cavalleria rusticana,” came out in 1891 and it was based on a very, very popular novel, immensely popular novel in France called “L'Ami Fritz,” it came out in 1864 and it remained popular right through the 19th century into the 20th century. There was a film made in 1934.

And I stress this because I do want to stress, I mean, you’ve had so much stuff about anti-Semitism in France, so much stuff about the Dreyfus-Affair, that’s one side of France. There is another side of France. Not all of France was anti-Semitic. And the enduring immense popularity of this novel is, I think, bears witness to that. The operas about a confirmed bachelor of a certain age and a young girl. And the bachelor’s best friend is the local rabbi who’s called David, and David really acts as a sort of marriage broker and he’s determined to bring these two together and he does so. And the opera ends with a joyous chorus of praise for Il Caro Rabino, the Dear Rabbi. And in fact, sadly Mascagni, really, he also took a big risk in the late, after the anti-Jewish laws were introduced into Italy, Mascagni, who was very revered, venerated composer. He asked for an interview with Mussolini and he used that to plea for his Jewish colleague, the composer Franchetti. Apparently Mussolini was enraged and threw Mascagni out and refused ever to see him again. Sadly, when the first recording of the opera, which is made during the war with Mascagni conducting, it was obviously not possible to stick to the original text to actually change the text even in Italy. So at the end, the chorus of praise is not to Il Caro Rabino, but to Il Caro Dotore, doctor, instead of rabbi. But I wanted to play you just a little bit and you’ve got the full text on your PowerPoint that you were sent of a such a moving scene. It’s such a beautiful scene where the rabbi sits down with the young girl and they, he gets her to read from the Bible and he gets her to read the story of Rebecca at the well in order to really tease out from her if she is in love with the hero of the opera. And yeah, here is just a bit of that scene, such a lovely score as well. I do recommend it to you. Here she’s reading from the Bible. Sadly, I think I have to break off there. It’s quite a long scene. So I’m just going to see what questions we’ve got. What comments?

Q&A and Comments:

Somebody says, Myrna Ross saying saw a documentary that has portrayed some of the cruel monarchs that worked his subjects to death building the temple.

That may well be true. I dunno, I dunno whether that’s true or not. I haven’t seen the documentary.

Q: Why ban on staging biblical subjects at Covent Garden?

A: Yeah, I know. It’s totally illogical and strange isn’t it?

A few years ago, this is Heather, I saw Handel’s “Saul” in the Gardens of Kibbutz on the shores of the Dead Sea, particularly meaningful as David hid from the Saul in a cave in Ein Gedi.

Let me see… Moses in Egypt, a very old man makes no sense. If he had to traipse across the desert for 40 years, possibly yes. I think that it was Toscanini’s decision to leave Italy rather than being thrown out.

Well he was beaten, yeah, he was actually beaten up by thugs. So I don’t think he was a very voluntary decision. He was physically attacked. Please repeat the name of the opera and the composer, I dunno which one that was, but it will be on my list that you have.

Did I know that Toscanini conducted the first… Yes, I did. Indeed I did.

And I strongly, that’s from Anne Evans, I strongly recognise that there are two wonderful documentaries about all of that. And “Orchestra of Exiles.” I hope that you will watch those.
Q: What was the name of the opera that Toscanini conducted?

A: I think it was probably, I was probably talking about “Moses in Egypt.”

Somebody recommending John Suchet’s book on Verde.

Somebody telling me that they’re crying and they’re not Italian.

Yeah, it does bring a tear to the eyes.

Being in Israel circa 2010, attended a performance of “Nabucco” at Masada, wow. And all Israelis in attendance sang along with the chorus for three encores, very moving.

Yeah, “Va Pensiero” is my favourite opera chorus, Ellie Straus says, yeah, it is a classic. There is a tradition in some opera houses to repeat the “Slaves’ Chorus” and the audience sings along, somebody else who was at that Masada performance.

No encores-rule and that but when Levine performed the Nabucco, they did also encore it. Thank you Herbert, telling me that.

Yes, Mahler also, like Wagner, thought very, very highly of “La Juive.” He also thought very highly actually of “L'Amico Fritz.” He conducted the premiere in, the German premier in Hamburg and was a big, big fan of Mascagni, and not, oddly of Puccini.

This is Margie saying strictly orthodox Jews would not go to the opera, but modern orthodox certainly do.

Yeah, I know, actually funnily enough going to Covent Garden, I’m always amused, I run into so many people from the London Jewish Cultural Centre at Wagner performances, sometimes looking a little bit sheepish as though they shouldn’t be there.

Q: Why are the Carusos spread as they are in the photo?

A: I’m not quite sure what what you mean by that question. Caruso was, I included images of him in “Sampson” and of course as Eleazar.

Yes, Caruso visited the Donone Synagogue. Yeah, to listen to learn from cantos there. That is true.

I wonder why the Ashkenazic tenors sound operatic whereas the Sephardic tenors just chant.

Yeah, I would like to know more about that myself. I’m a big fan by the way of Ashkenazic historic cantos. They’re fantastic. They really are extraordinary. Q: What was it Gershon, who’s the really, really famous Polish one who died in the Polish ghetto and they said he was the Jewish Caruso.

A: Israeli’s Lavano, of course Domingo, yes. He had a close association with Israel Opera, he tells a funny story about how odd was singing “Aida,” this Spanish tenor, in Israel and you know, all the chorus, shouting for victory for the Egyptians. It sounds nothing like Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical music. I thought that would, you would say that. I thought that would be the answer.

If you hadn’t answered the question, this is Cliff, I would not have even considered that the Wagner piece was based on Jewish liturgical music.

Certainly doesn’t sound like it to me. Yeah, I think it was a total misunderstanding. And Cliff also points out that Richard, the piece from “La Juive”, well, understandably, it sounds more like it.

Yeah. Various. So that seems to be the general consensus, it’s absolute nonsense, the theory about “Beckmesser’s Serenade” being based on Jewish music.

Somebody’s saying any session at the Knesset, you’ll see all the parliamentarians talking at once. Know that the Jews aren’t the only ones to talk above one another.

No, no, I mean absolutely not. I mean anybody can, but I’d say probably Latins do, quite a bit, Italians do.

And what’s about the British Parliament says Amira, all talking at once and being very rude to one another. Yes, but my, my point being though, that it’s not anti-Semitic to point out that Jews can talk over one another.

Rodney, never heard, oh, heard Nabucco, aged 12 on record, never forgot intensity, which resonated. I’ve heard the Beckmesser attempt. I don’t, yeah. And tried to hear any anti-Semitism. There’s no anti-Semitism. I agree with you. I don’t think there’s any… There’s a big debate of course, about whether the text has some kind of hidden anti-Semitic message. But I’m not going to go into that. I’ll leave others to talk about that. Introducing the five Jewish, produce some pleasing harmonies. You must have very tolerant ears. That’s what I can say.

Q: ‘Cause they’re they’re pretty dissonant harmonies in that scene. E.T.A. Hoffmann?

A: No, he wasn’t Jewish.

Q: Which particular story in Hoffmann tales?

A: Well, it must be called “Der Brautwahl.” It’s actually a narrative poem called “Der Brautwahl.” “Höhnisch,” in this…

Sorry, who’s pointing out? Yeah , I probably mistranslated höhnisch.

Sarcastic. Yes, sarcastic, yes. Recording of Neil Schicoff singing Eleazar. Also gave a talk to U3A on biblical operas that used more modern recordings using YouTube and PowerPoint. Was interesting to hear the operas with past performers. You know, I think I’ve mentioned before, I could have heard one of the last performances of Richard Tucker. He did it in London at the Albert Hall. And I stupidly didn’t go.

Q: This, oh, right… Can you please repeat the name of Rachmaninoff?

A: “The Miserly Knight.” Everything should be on the list that you have.

Dorette: Strauss’s daughter-in-law, Alice was Jewish and his grandchildren were considered Jewish by Nazi laws.

This is very true. And I think that a lot, that is absolutely true.

Thank you Doris, Dorette, for pointing that out. I think, you know, I’ve often said that to people, you know, when we’ve had this discussion about Strauss’s lack of courage.

Q: Would you have been courageous enough to sacrifice your grandchildren to make a moral point?

A: I don’t think many of us would.

Somebody, this is Rosemary saying, didn’t see the Solomon documentary, but if you read your Bible, you will see that the building of the temple was indeed indentured labour. Well those were the days, not to mention ecologically destructive, but I don’t think we should necessarily impose our moral values on people thousands of years ago.

Carol, asking when this lecture will be available, I think I’m told probably by Christmas. Dibuk.

This is name Naomi in Toronto. Right? It’s a play that’s in in Toronto? Yeah. The book that was, yes. It’s a wonderful book actually. It’s called, in French. I’m sure it must be translated to English. It’s “L'Ami Fritz.” of course, in Italian it’s, “L'amico Fritz.” And the whole point of the book really is Jews, Protestants and Catholics living together in Sal Alsace and getting on together and interacting with one another. So it’s one of those little oasis of enlightenment.

Yes. I’m really, really, I was, I couldn’t get to “L'amico Fritz” 'cause I was stuck in, in Paris. They, funny enough, Holland Park have done “L'amico Fritz” three times and it is just very touching, very beautiful opera.

On “Klinghoffer?”

Oh my God, you really do want to have put me in the shit, don’t you? I’m sorry, that “Klinghoffer” I’d have to do that, I was actually asked to do a talk on “Klinghoffer” at LJCC. I was actually relieved when it got cancelled in the end. Oh dear. That is just a can of worms. What can I say? That really is. Um, there’s, yeah, I suppose you can hear some echoes of Kav in the music of, but it’s a very different opera, “L'Amico Fritz.” Right.

Q: Would I talk about Kurt Weill?

A: Would love to, sometime. Would absolutely love to.

Yeah. Well, I hope my comments on anti-Semitism were painful in the right sense and not the wrong sense. But what can I say? Toscanini’s daughter Wanda was… That’s true, that she was married to Vladimir Horowitz.

Q: Who were the singers?

A: That was Pavarotti. It’s a very good recording, actually. I’m not usually a fan of Pavarotti and it’s, oh God, the, the Mirella Freni. Amazingly, they actually shared, now this is a really obscure piece of information. Did you know that Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni shared the same wet nurse when they were babies? And she always used to say, “You could tell which one of us got most of the milk.” Some people think that Condre is, I mean, it depends there are various books that interpret Condre as a Jewish character. And then she sort of, what, she drops dead when she’s baptised. Another, not a very good advertisement for baptism.

Q: Could Rigoletto have been Jewish?

A: He, you know, that’s a really interesting thought. He’s one of those, he’s a Shylock-character, really, isn’t he? He’s a, and actually Verde commented on that, that he felt that Rigoletto was a Shakespearean character in his complexity.

Q: Any comment about “Moses and Aaron” by Schonberg?

A: Not really. I’ve heard it a few times. I don’t know it well. It’s quite a difficult piece, I think. And I think that’s where it is. I’ve run out of questions. Thank you all very, very much.

• [Judy] Thank you, Patrick. And it’s a little, I’ve got a little gap now, I think about a three week gap before I talk to you again. So please enjoy all your holidays and festivities and see you again soon.

• [Judy] Thank you, Patrick. Bye-bye everyone.

• Bye-bye.