leonid17 Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I see two distinctions being made: admitting to joining any political entity to survive as a performing artist vs. lying about it after the fact, and survival as an artist vs. using membership to obtain more acclaim, wealth, apartment, etc. I would say that there is a third flavor, which is usually associated with the mafia: take the goodies or we'll exile your family, but anyone who is associated with a party publicly doesn't have plausible deniability at having joined, regardless of the reason.I think the issue in Schwarzkopf's case is her denial, rather than her participation. Part of the rehabilitation of even the worst of criminal offenders, is putting their past life behind and moving on to make a positive contribution to society. To deny in this instance, is not in itself a crime, but is rather an assertion that what was, no longer is. We are not talking about a war criminal. Many, indeed most Germans supported the Nazi party in Hitler’s time in way or another, the alternative was for them was unthinkable. To contribute to an art form as Dame Elizabeth Schwarzkopf did and in a way that bought much too many, she made a unique contribution to opera and song. Just let’s get the balance right in assessing what made her a public figure and thus open to criticism. In my opinion she made what I believe will remain a unique contribution and I will always remember her recitals in London and a performance where she could still sing an operatic aria with meaning and technical skill at an age when many legendary singers have long left the stage. Link to comment
Helene Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I see two distinctions being made: admitting to joining any political entity to survive as a performing artist vs. lying about it after the fact, and survival as an artist vs. using membership to obtain more acclaim, wealth, apartment, etc. I would say that there is a third flavor, which is usually associated with the mafia: take the goodies or we'll exile your family, but anyone who is associated with a party publicly doesn't have plausible deniability at having joined, regardless of the reason. I think the issue in Schwarzkopf's case is her denial, rather than her participation. Part of the rehabilitation of even the worst of criminal offenders, is putting their past life behind and moving on to make a positive contribution to society. An important part of the criminal justice tradition in the US is admitting the crime and taking responsibility for it. To deny in this instance, is not in itself a crime, but is rather an assertion that what was, no longer is. We are not talking about a war criminal. Many, indeed most Germans supported the Nazi party in Hitler’s time in way or another, the alternative was for them was unthinkable.To contribute to an art form as Dame Elizabeth Schwarzkopf did and in a way that bought much too many, she made a unique contribution to opera and song. Just let’s get the balance right in assessing what made her a public figure and thus open to criticism. In my opinion she made what I believe will remain a unique contribution and I will always remember her recitals in London and a performance where she could still sing an operatic aria with meaning and technical skill at an age when many legendary singers have long left the stage. I have two thoughts on this: first, that it is responsible to acknowledge the cultural importance and ability of an artist, but it is not required to admire that artist fully or partially, and second, that each person is responsible for making his or her own judgement about how to weigh the life events of an artist in determining whether to admire that artist. Link to comment
canbelto Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I have two thoughts on this: first, that it is responsible to acknowledge the cultural importance and ability of an artist, but it is not required to admire that artist fully or partially, and second, that each person is responsible for making his or her own judgement about how to weigh the life events of an artist in determining whether to admire that artist. ITA with this. In fact, I'd take it a step further and say, "If Schwarzkopf wasn't so talented, would anyone be making excuses for her behavior?" I think it's that aspect of the Schwarzkopf discussion that always irritates me a bit. I find it a bit akin to a celebrity obnoxiously screaming, "Do you know who I am?" In my opinion, being famous/talented/beautiful isn't an excuse for personally rephrehensible behavior. I'm not even saying I find Schwarzkopf's behavior irredeemably reprehensible. But to say, "she was a great artist, we should only focus on that" makes me bristle. Link to comment
leonid17 Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I have two thoughts on this: first, that it is responsible to acknowledge the cultural importance and ability of an artist, but it is not required to admire that artist fully or partially, and second, that each person is responsible for making his or her own judgement about how to weigh the life events of an artist in determining whether to admire that artist. But to say, "she was a great artist, we should only focus on that" makes me bristle. Quite right, only I can't find any post where this was said. Link to comment
dirac Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 No -- but it's been said before, not necessarily here, when such cases as Schwarzkopf's come up. It’s a defensible position. I'm a political animal myself, but if I chose to listen to Schwarzkopf and admire her artistry knowing little or nothing about her political history, I'd be within my rights. Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 To deny in this instance, is not in itself a crime, but is rather an assertion that what was, no longer is. Absolutely not. I think that is a decadent point of view. To deny in this instance was to try to rewrite history and 'get away with what was', and there is no reason to think that it 'no longer is' except for the fact the Nazis were defeated and Ms. Schwarzkopf is dead. One should still be able to appreciate her work completely, but there is no point in thinking that Ms. Schwarzkopf, even if not guilty of a 'crime' in denial, was anything less than fully dishonest and was probably fatuous as well, as she has even less remorse, from what I've seen thus far, than Leni Riefenstahl, and even Heidegger finally spoke to 'Der Spiegel' about the death camps. Ms. Schwarzkopf's declamation of 'Vissi d'Arte' proves her to be a con artist with a heavy layer of kitsch that's supposed to redeem her personal mediocrity. Her interest was in excusing her complicity, not that she thought it was truly innocent. I have actually met a surprising number of Germans who feel less guilty than the official line of their government would lead you to believe. Many Germans (and German Swiss and Swedes) are quite free with anti-Semitic remarks, although they know that it is not going to work again as policy. I have known a few personally who have praised Hitler's achievements with the Autobahn and said well, yes, some things did happen that 'are not so nice', but I am German. Link to comment
dirac Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 To deny in this instance, is not in itself a crime, but is rather an assertion that what was, no longer is. Absolutely not. I think that is a decadent point of view. To deny in this instance was to try to rewrite history and 'get away with what was', and there is no reason to think that it 'no longer is' except for the fact the Nazis were defeated and Ms. Schwarzkopf is dead. One should still be able to appreciate her work completely, but there is no point in thinking that Ms. Schwarzkopf, even if not guilty of a 'crime' in denial, was anything less than fully dishonest and was probably fatuous as well, as she has even less remorse, from what I've seen thus far, than Leni Riefenstahl, and even Heidegger finally spoke to 'Der Spiegel' about the death camps. Ms. Schwarzkopf's declamation of 'Vissi d'Arte' proves her to be a con artist with a heavy layer of kitsch that's supposed to redeem her personal mediocrity. Her interest was in excusing her complicity, not that she thought it was truly innocent. I have actually met a surprising number of Germans who feel less guilty than the official line of their government would lead you to believe. Many Germans (and German Swiss and Swedes) are quite free with anti-Semitic remarks, although they know that it is not going to work again as policy. I have known a few personally who have praised Hitler's achievements with the Autobahn and said well, yes, some things did happen that 'are not so nice', but I am German. I know this is a subject about which many feel strongly, but I am cautioning everyone to avoid getting too personal and keeping the lid on the rhetoric. Thanks. Link to comment
kfw Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 I think the issue in Schwarzkopf's case is her denial, rather than her participation. Part of the rehabilitation of even the worst of criminal offenders, is putting their past life behind and moving on to make a positive contribution to society. That Schwarzkopf went on to make a contribution isn't in dispute, but I don't think there is such a thing as moral rehabilitiation without confession, without a willingness to be honest to the people one has wronged. In fact, as psychologists say and as most of us know from our own experience, only through facing up to our wrongdoing can we really put it the past. And moral crimes can't be balanced with artistic contribution. There is no way to compute -- there is no such thing as a computation of -- whether or not Schwazkopf's activities as a party member did more harm than her singing did good. These are two different spheres. We can only judge them separately. Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 There is no way to compute -- there is no such thing as a computation of -- whether or not Schwazkopf's activities as a party member did more harm than her singing did good. These are two different spheres. We can only judge them separately. Possibly, but I tend to agree with much of what AnthonyNYC said about what you can also hear in the work itself. I think I can hear it and see it in the film of 'Rosenkavalier.' We can try all we will to keep the 'different spheres' separate, but we often cannot do it. I am glad for this discussion, because I now realize that I much prefer Kiri TeKanawa's Marschallin: She not only has a far more beautiful voice and finer technique, I find her whole persona to be far more beautiful and radiant. Schwarzkopf for me is an extremely unimportant artist and has always been, even if I can see why she is important to others. I am glad to have seen her Marschallin, but in thinking about it as this thread has developed, I see that it leaves me cold and that I find her superficial and repellent. Leni Riefenstahl, also a Nazi, is, on the other hand, an important artist for me--her propaganda film 'The Triumph of the Will', while not only often cited as 'the greatest propaganda film ever made', is an important document about Hitler that we would not have otherwise. Link to comment
Helene Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 To many, many people Schwartzkopf was like Jerome Robbins: a very deliberate and intentional artist, whose work was received and felt as spontaneous, fresh, and sublime. Others she did not touch, but it is the rare artist who appeals to everyone. Link to comment
Petra Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 I don't want to fan any flames, but I find it hard to understand how Leni Riefenstahl can be considered in any way morally superior to Schwartzkopf. It seems like Schwartzkopf joined the Nazi party mainly because she was opportunistic whereas Riefenstahl was an 'ideological' Nazi who bears some responsibility for propagating Nazi ideology. Two ladies who were beautiful and talented and morally repugnant. Isn't there a fairytale (or a soap opera) about this? Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 I don't want to fan any flames, but I find it hard to understand how Leni Riefenstahl can be considered in any way morally superior to Schwartzkopf. It seems like Schwartzkopf joined the Nazi party mainly because she was opportunistic whereas Riefenstahl was an 'ideological' Nazi who bears some responsibility for propagating Nazi ideology. Two ladies who were beautiful and talented and morally repugnant. Isn't there a fairytale (or a soap opera) about this? Riefenstahl perhaps superior only insofar as she did admit, not only with her work, but later that she had never spoken out or resisted the Nazi Party. Obviously, 'Triumph of the Will' was real propaganda, even if film scholars and Susan Sontag think it was 'great propaganda.' Same with 'Olympiad,' of course. But she paid heavily for her 'looking the other way.' Maybe I just think she was more of who she really seemed to be, and not deceitful about it, more honest (I'm convinced of this, but am certainly open to another point of view.) Obviously, she was, as you say, an 'ideological Nazi' and does 'bear some responsibility for propagating Nazi ideology. She later became fully aware of what had happened at Auschwitz, and was horrified but, as I mentioned, did pay a very heavy price for her decisions. Schwarzkopf paid little and gives the impression she wanted to pay less and less. She was interested in her pristine rococo image, and her Marschallin sounds precisely as vapid as that kind of thinking would produce--in fact, a legitimate interpretation in a totally sterilized opera by another Nazi, so it was really a marriage made somewhere or other. That I don't like it as well as a full-bodied woman singing it is of no importance to anyone else. Edited to add: I just found this that is appropriate to this and some other discussions in Wikipedia, re: Strauss's own politics: 'among them the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who famously said, "To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again." Link to comment
kfw Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick, I don't understand why the price each performer paid affects your evaluation of them. Do you think Riefenstahl's suffering lessens her culpability? She may have paid more, but she was responsible for much more too, and she didn't pay more willingly, did she? And how can we separate her art from the damage it did? I mean, we can admire its formal values, but can we ever give ourselves up to it like we can to Schwartzkopf's singing? And was Riefenstahl more authentic because she didn't (but how could she have?) hidden her true sympathies, when as far as we know Schwartzkopf only did what she did in order to have a career? Is there any chance that your low opinion of Schwarzkopf's work is influenced by her politics? Just wondering. We can wish that she'd been more forthcoming, but that might have required almost as much strength of character -- extraordinary strength of character -- than resistance. Link to comment
canbelto Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 As much as I find Schwarzkopf's actions reprehensible, I have to admit I don't "hear" her personality in her recordings or videos. Schwarzkopf could also be warm and endearing, in her champagne operetta recordings. Her Alice Ford also has a warm, clever personality. I do think art reflects personality, up to a point. For instance, anyone ever read Wagner's letters and diaries? His operas seem taut and terse compared to his letters. The guy was a gigantic windbag who loved to hear the sound of his own voice. I love Wagner's works but I can't say that I don't see the portentiousness, the megalomania, etc. in his operas. Mozart's letters are often witty and naughty, much like so much of his works. However, I don't think art is necessarily the best representative of personality. Basically, I kind of see three issues, whenever the point of Schwarzkopf is brought up, and they're all kind of separate, but they often get meshed into one debate: 1. Her artistic contributions. Schwarzkopf is a polarizing singer. You either like the sound of her voice and her style, or you don't, or you fall sort of in between (like me). But I know Schwarzkopf fanatics, who find her portrayals of the Marschallin, etc. without compare. There are the ES lieder fanatics, who think she's the last word on Schubert and Wolf. And then there are the people who are actively turned off by the sound of her voice and mannerisms. 2. Her personal behavior. Either its excusable or it's not. I know some opera fans who love her singing but attended one of her master classes and became completely disgusted with her as a person. I also know people who know all about Schwarzkopf's actions pre-and post-war, and find that they are understandable, given the conditions of the time. That's a personal judgement call. 3. Whether you can separate her personality from her singing. I know a guy who refuses to have any German music in his house. This guy is a huge classical music buff, but no Beethoven, no Mozart, etc. That's his prerogative. Personally I think he's missing out on great music, but ... It's kind of like whether I can watch an Elia Kazan movie, knowing that he was a "rat," as Chris Rock said. I personally can. But some people can't. I respect those who can separate Schwarzkopf's personal life from her music, and those who can't. It's a judgement call. Where it kind of gets muddy (and this is where most of the fights occur, as a longtime subscriber to several opera lists) is when the first three debates are mixed together. It often goes like, "How dare you judge Schwarzkopf's actions, when she made so many contributions to Wolf lieder?" Or "I don't know how you can listen to her, considering how disgusting she is as a person." Link to comment
Helene Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 I know some opera fans who love her singing but attended one of her master classes and became completely disgusted with her as a person. I saw a documentary, I think on PBS, in which Schwarzkopf gave a master class, and disliked her immensely from it. However, I had never known that she was mis-typed until I read her obituaries, which put her advice to one guy to start over in a new voice type in a different light. Where it kind of gets muddy (and this is where most of the fights occur, as a longtime subscriber to several opera lists) is when the first three debates are mixed together. It often goes like, "How dare you judge Schwarzkopf's actions, when she made so many contributions to Wolf lieder?" Or "I don't know how you can listen to her, considering how disgusting she is as a person."Most complex issues cause contentiousness, and in making judgements about art, each must decide what is appropriate to combine or keep out of the equation. Link to comment
bart Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 Canbelto and Helene both mention the variety of responses that can be made to a case like ES's. There was similar inconsistency -- combined with a great deal of hypocricsy -- in the way artists who were party members and collaborators were treated in the immediate aftermath of WWII. This was true in Germany and Italy, but also in occupied countries like France, where some creative people (writers, actors, msuicians) lost everything whle others were allowed to keep quiet for a short time and then to resume their careers. The US and USSR, which were quite willing to work with high-level scientists who had formerly supported the Nazi regime, were not without some blame in this. It is appropriate to ask the question: what SHOULD someone like ES have done in that situation? But I have also been asking myself: What might I have done? And I am ashamed to admit that I cannot say with absolute certainty that I would have chosen, in those awful and conflusing times, a path of complete honesty, openness, and public contrition. Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick, I don't understand why the price each performer paid affects your evaluation of them. Do you think Riefenstahl's suffering lessens her culpability? She may have paid more, but she was responsible for much more too, and she didn't pay more willingly, did she? And how can we separate her art from the damage it did? I mean, we can admire its formal values, but can we ever give ourselves up to it like we can to Schwartzkopf's singing? And was Riefenstahl more authentic because she didn't (but how could she have?) hidden her true sympathies, when as far as we know Schwartzkopf only did what she did in order to have a career? Is there any chance that your low opinion of Schwarzkopf's work is influenced by her politics? Just wondering. We can wish that she'd been more forthcoming, but that might have required almost as much strength of character -- extraordinary strength of character -- than resistance. (First, I have to re-quote your last night's post, just so we have it here:) And moral crimes can't be balanced with artistic contribution. There is no way to compute -- there is no such thing as a computation of -- whether or not Schwazkopf's activities as a party member did more harm than her singing did good. These are two different spheres. We can only judge them separately. The first question is easily answered, as I was responding only to GWTW's question about 'moral superiority.' My admiration for Riefenstahl's strengths may be largely personal--I know how guilty she was in many ways, but still she wasn't a fake. I didn't mean that that excuses everything she did, but that being almost a caricature of 'Nazi superwoman' herself--amazing athlete, dancer, movie star, filmmaker, writer, photographer--that's at least as understandable that she would identify herself with the tiny elite of superhuman strength and health that Nazism aggrandized, at least as understandable as Schwarzkopf's prosaic and rather commonplace desire to be careerist is. I don't think it matters if 'she paid more willingly', but rather that she had to pay. Schwarzkopf would have been a better person if she'd had to pay more and get away with singing less German schmaltz. 'And how can we separate her art from the damage it did?' That's why I had to requote from your previous comment, because you probably feel that there are degrees and there may well be. But clearly, Riefenstahl and other Nazis were not supporting Hitler because they were foreseeing the death camps, but rather because they thought the absurd 'will to power' was salutary. She said in 'the Wonderful, Horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl' that she wished the film ('Triumph of the Will") had never been made. She may well have felt that it wasn't worth it for many people, including herself. In any case, all of Sontag's essays on Riefenstahl are some of her truly fine work (and I like very little of her work.) Anyway, since you wrote both these somewhat contradictory ideas about separation and non-separation, some of this part may be for you to clarify. If one loves Schwarzkopf's singing, of course there is not really any way to compare Riefenstahl's propaganda films to the excitement an aficionado will feel. But it's also true that the films were made when the movement was alive, and the 'formal values' are not only most of what's left, but all that even could be left. They are nevertheless, because highly skilled, among the greatest documents made and their value in that respect can hardly be overestimated, even if they were made for other reasons at the time. That's a good question about the authenticity, and much of one aspect of what has interested me here devolves about that: I'd say that yes, I find her far more authentic. She did what she believed in and, even if this is tragically wrong, it impresses me in a certain way despite its tragedy (and Riefenstahl is indeed a tragedy) that petty career opportunism like Schwarzkopf's does not. My opinion of Schwarzkopf's singing is not all that low. It's just that I became aware, as we all developed this discussion, that my feeling about her Marschallin has changed. It may have been influenced by what AnthonyNYC pointed out, in that I began to realize that I had secretly liked all that time what I had definitely really thought of as pure artifice. But again, in another sense, I think she was perfect in this role even if I hate it, because I hate that artificial Nazi-kitsch opera. But the voice itself is not beautiful enough to make me overlook her 'perfection of artificiality.' TeKanawa may be ironically 'inauthentic' by comparison, because she is not ever really capable of full insincerity, which can be a viable mode--but I can live with her half-Maori singing a Nazi part somehow. Either is interesting, and neither very important to me, as I'd much rather hear Kiri in almost anything else. My objection to Schwarzkopf's particular case, with the 'denial,' as several have pointed out. The idea that this denial was about 'something that once was, but is no more' just struck me as giving wrong special privileges to an artist one loves. Some special privileges are understandable and should be extended, but not nearly all. On this point, I think I am in agreement with canbelto (although she may not think so.) So you bring up some good things, but it's complex. I'm with Toscanini on Strauss in general, even if I don't like 'Rosenkavalier.' And it's true, Wagner's anti-Semitism does not ever even occur to me when I hear and see his operas, some of which I prefer to all others. So some of my lack of enthusiasm for Ms. Schwarzkopf may have derived from a realization I had after certain ideas that made me re-evaluate what I felt about her, but I think it is really that I don't care for her style, first; secondly, since this is a topical matter, I wasn't very interested in the ideas that Ms. Schwarzkopf's denial was something other than just that. It's possible if Wagner, Jung and others with anti-Semitic and racist attitudes were current, I'd feel the same way. Finally, I don't think my opinion of Schwarzkopf as an artist depends on her politics even if I find her personally loathsome, because I don't think those who do love her work should be affected by it--they should love it as if the politics never existed if they're able. I was just talking about the politics itself/ themselves: the matter of making her denial of such things different from those of lesser stature I find quite as I've already said. So that some of this has to do with this particular moment (her death) in which it's all more on people's minds than some of the others. As I've mentioned elsewhere, many people can't see Griffith as the great filmmaker I find him to be because they don't see anything but the KKK. Link to comment
kfw Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick, when I asked 'And how can we separate her art from the damage it did,?' I was referring to our experience of Riefenstahl's work. If we responded fully, we'd become Nazis. Schwartzkopf's work doesn't suffer from the same dynamic. Link to comment
Petra Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick, I find your argument in favour of Riefenstahl very Romantic and compelling, and my instinct is to agree with you. I think art-lovers respond easily and favourably to "authenticity". We are often willing to ignore or overlook the faults of the artists we admire, and in the past there have been quite a few discussions on BT about what kind of behaviour becomes a 'genius' most. Unfortunately, in the year 2006, admiring someone because her beliefs are authentic and not 'fake' is dangerous, especially when that belief is that one group of people is superior to all other groups of people. Edited to add: This is to ensure that none of us need to be in the situation that Schwartzkopf and Riefenstahl were in. And let's fact it, they had it good. Many artists didn't have the privilege of making a choice, and were shipped to Theresienstadt, the 'up market' concentration camp. Link to comment
bart Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 Support for Nazism took many forms, and it could be argued that one became a supporter simply by not actively resisting. I believe that papeetepatrick linked Schwarzkof and Riefenstahl to make an interesting and complex set of comparisons involving a number of variables. So I'd hate to see these two women lumped together more simplistically as a single SchwarzkofundRiefenstahl villainess without regard to questions of the nature, degree, and consequences of their respective actions and/or inactions. Riefenstahl, in my opinion, enforced and perpetuated the mythology of the unity of Nazism, Reich and Volk to an extent that poor little ES could not have dreamed of, even if she wished to. The undeniable artistic brilliance of Riefenstahl's work made it even more effective and dangerous than if she had been one of the party hacks who turned out all those other Hiltler era musicals and domestic dramas. Link to comment
dirac Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick writes: My admiration for Riefenstahl's strengths may be largely personal--I know how guilty she was in many ways, but still she wasn't a fake. I didn't mean that that excuses everything she did, but that being almost a caricature of 'Nazi superwoman' herself--amazing athlete, dancer, movie star, filmmaker, writer, photographer--that's at least as understandable that she would identify herself with the tiny elite of superhuman strength and health that Nazism aggrandized, at least as understandable as Schwarzkopf's prosaic and rather commonplace desire to be careerist is. Off topic. Riefenstahl has such an eye that her skills can undercut the point ostensibly being made, cf. the beautiful footage of Jesse Owens, a remarkable camera subject of whom she can’t get enough, and the shots of the Nazi leaders and the mass rallies in Triumph of the Will – she exposes them as she glorifies them. Perhaps Hitler should have chosen a less talented director. Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 papeetepatrick, I find your argument in favour of Riefenstahl very Romantic and compelling, and my instinct is to agree with you. I think art-lovers respond easily and favourably to "authenticity". We are often willing to ignore or overlook the faults of the artists we admire, and in the past there have been quite a few discussions on BT about what kind of behaviour becomes a 'genius' most. Unfortunately, in the year 2006, admiring someone because her beliefs are authentic and not 'fake' is dangerous, especially when that belief is that one group of people is superior to all other groups of people. : Edited to add: This is to ensure that none of us need to be in the situation that Schwartzkopf and Riefenstahl were in. And let's fact it, they had it good. Many artists didn't have the privilege of making a choice, and were shipped to Theresienstadt, the 'up market' concentration camp. But I already wrote this below. If I said she was 'tragically wrong,' it is not then applicable that 'admiring someone because her beliefs are authentic and not 'fake' is dangeous.' 'Tragically wrong' already indicates quite explicitly something I wouldn't know how to admire. If you admire something that is in fact wrong, you don't also believe it's wrong. I still therefore can admire her for her authenticity, because as dirac points out, her gifts were so extraordinary that she 'exposes them [the Nazi leaders] while glorifying them,' and Hitler can hardly have preferred that an artist be incapable of not introducing vision not specifically ordered up for serving. even if this is tragically wrong, it impresses me in a certain way despite its tragedy (and Riefenstahl is indeed a tragedy) Link to comment
bart Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 The obituary in the August 12 issue of The Economist is very revealing. (It's also on line, but you have to be a subscriber to access the site.) The writer depicts a Schawarzkopf quite different from her more successful stage roles, the highly sympathetic and even compassionate Countess, Marschallin, and Dona Elvira. intense ambition and drive figure prominently in the pre-war and wartime periods: Sheer determination had got her into the Deutsche Oper. Having fibbed at interview that she knew the part of the Second Flower Maiden in Parsifal, she crammed it for 36 hours, and was whistling it, to keep it in her head, as she went to the dressing room. Determination, too, took her to Vienna midway through the war, her best audition dress stuffed in her suitcase, to make a bid for the attention of Karl Bohm at the Vienna State Opera. She succeeded, and went on to sing Mozart in a city in ruins and to an audience without bread. As to her relationship with her husband, Walter Legge, the write comments: Her career was often shaped by the bullying of other people, a bullying she accepted as a necessary to excel. There's a fascinating written snapshot of Legge watching from a stage box to check audience reactions to her performances. And this: For months, ... seated by his gramophone, she was made to listen again and again to the way Dame Nellie Melba, with a single word, could reduce a house to tears. The article also adds some details as to her involvement with the German war effort, though not directly with the Nazi Party: There had been ... a darker side. Miss Schwarzkopf had joined the Nazi party in 1938, had collected for the Winterhilfe fund that helped soldiers on the eastern front, and had sung for the German occupiers in Paris. More than that, the whispers went, she had been protected and promoted in her career by a top Nazi who had fallen for her perfect Aryan looks and had become her lover. Confronted directly, at first by the Allies and later by the press, Miss Schwarzkopf hedged and fudged about it all. "Whispers". I wonder what that means, and what truths or falsehoods they reveal or don't. Link to comment
Paul Parish Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 "How could they not have known? How could they not have known?" It turns out Gunter Grass was a in the Waffen SS and has only now had felt he had to reveal it. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/arts/17g...r=1&oref=slogin I continue to think it is shameful for us to insist that today's standards be applied to people 70 years ago, when the conditions of life were so different it boggles the mind. Not only with respect to what they did then, but how they thought about it afterwards. Many many people who lived through the holocaust -- or indeed World War II -- were unable to bring themselves to talk about what they'd seen, much less what they'd done. My own father, who was a pilot during the War in the US Army Air Corps, had nightmares for the following 50 years every night about his plane going down in flames -- they sat on their gas-tanks, and he heard over his radio the sound of his friends screaming as their planes were hit and burned up alive -- and he only got around to talking about that in the last years of his life. The current fashion to find it impossible to imagine being tainted with sympathy for human weakness ought to be resisted, IMHO, and spoken out against if you have the courage, especially by people who think ofthemselves as progressive. Even the story of her claiming she knew the Second Flower maiden when she didn't -- yet -- and then cramming it and winning the audition -- well, that story makes me admire her pluck and quick wits and gumption and see her as kin to Katharine Hepburn. Jo March would have done that. Heidi would have done that. Harry Potter would have done that. What's wrong with that? Link to comment
dirac Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 Paul Parish writes: Even the story of her claiming she knew the Second Flower maiden when she didn't -- yet -- and then cramming it and winning the audition -- well, that story makes me admire her pluck and quick wits and gumption and see her as kin to Katharine Hepburn. Jo March would have done that. Heidi would have done that. Harry Potter would have done that. What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. I think here is where Schwarzkopf’s being a woman becomes a factor. Strong ambition openly expressed attracts more negative notice in women than in men, as a rule. Link to comment
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