Wagner’s Jews
Documentary - in production
The German opera composer Richard Wagner is remembered today not only for his creative work, but for his virulent anti-Semitic writings, which played a crucial role in the development of modern racial anti-Semitism.
Yet there is another, lesser-known side to this story. For years, many of Wagner’s closest associates were Jews—young musicians who became personally devoted to the composer, and provided indispensable help to his work and career. They included Hermann Levi, a rabbi's son who conducted the premiere of Wagner’s Parsifal; Angelo Neumann, who produced Wagner's works throughout Europe; and Joseph Rubinstein, a pianist who lived with the Wagner family for years and committed suicide when Wagner died. Even as Wagner called for the elimination of the Jews from German life, many of his most active supporters were Jewish—as Wagner himself noted with surprise. There were other Jewish colleagues who took another route and ended their relationships with Wagner when the depth of his anti-Semitism became clear.
Who were these men? What brought them to Richard Wagner? What do their lives tell us about the times and the communities that they lived in? These questions are at the heart of WAGNER'S JEWS, the first documentary to focus on Wagner's complex personal relationships with Jews. The film will bring these remarkable stories to life using archival sources, re-enactments, interviews, and musical performances. Around this core narrative, the film will explore the larger events in Jewish and German history which Wagner and his Jewish contemporaries were inexorably drawn into—as well as the relationship between Wagner’s racial ideology and his artistic work. The film’s concluding section will explore ways in which Wagner's music, and the shadow of his anti-Semitism, continued to impact Jewish composers and performers after his death.
Overtone Films is currently filming interviews with scholars, biographers and musicians. The film will have premiere screenings in 2013, the bicentennial of Wagner’s birth.
For more information, please contact Hilan Warshaw at hilan@overtonefilms.com. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to the project, please visit the film’s fund-raising page at Fractured Atlas.
WAGNER’S JEWS is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas will receive grants for the purposes of WAGNER’S JEWS, provide oversight to ensure that grant funds are used in accordance with grant agreements, and provide reports as required by the grantor.