Here’s one more healthy “boo,” not for the L.A. Opera's "Die Walkure," but for L.A. Times critic Mark Swed, not only for being less than forthcoming in his Apr. 5 critique, but for hauling out the trivializing cliché of the “Ride of the Valkyries” being used in “Apocalypse Now,” and most important, for the de rigueur reference to Wagner’s anti-Semitism.
          Perhaps this very politically correct critic felt a need to keep up his credentials with the Anti-Defamation League, but his remark was off-the-subject, gratuitous, and astoundingly stupid.  (Is it coincidence that the Times laid off its arts editor a couple weeks ago?) Here it is:
            "This Freyer production is not to everyone's taste; no production of any merit, confrontational or conventional, is or should be. Wagner’s world is highly provocative, shockingly banal, morally offensive, emotionally transcendental, astonishingly wise and, when wrong-headed, dangerously so.  Accept it all on face value, and you may want to keep company with Hitler."
          Keep company with Hitler. Wow. Let’s analyze this, as Swed certainly didn’t.

          No one would intelligently argue that The Ring is not a story of how deceit, cunning, cruelty, blind obedience to authority and tradition, racial pride/supremacy (the race of gods) lead inevitably to self-destruction. How a hierarchy is brought down by its own arrogance, ambition, avarice. Wagner was an anti-Semite, of course, at a time when anti-Semitism lacked the connotative horror of Nazi mass-murder. In recent years, it seems that every article or set of program notes about the composer is duty-bound to mention this sorry fact, and Swed really went out of his way to shoehorn it in. 
          The story of “Der Ring Des Nibelungen” is hardly propaganda for nationalism, or a master race, Siegfried’s blonde hair and blue eyes notwithstanding. It is really quite the opposite---a humanist allegory for the folly of authoritarianism and notions of supremacy. How does such a story inspire any sane person to want to “keep company with Hitler?”
          What an irresponsible, inflammatory, yokel thing to say.
          Which leads me to the real message of the Ring Cycle---and, as L.A. Opera conductor James Conlon notes in his remarkably comprehensive pre-concert talks, the real message of every single Wagner opera: the redemptive power of love. Love. In this case, it is chiefly the love of Brunhilde for her father. (Certainly the love Sieglinde retains for the dead Siegmund, which moves her to go through with the birth of their son, is notable, perhaps all the more poignant for their discovery of being brother and sister.)
          Here, the gallant and faithful Valkyrie knows her father’s heart is at odds with his command that she not protect his son, Siegmund (it’s complicated, folks), and she obeys her heart rather than his order. This sets in motion, as she knew it would, the end of the gods, and herself.
          So here you have a titanic act of self-sacrifice, an expression of ardent love that overrules unthinking obedience; a statement of individuality taking precedence over bureaucracy, conformity, authority. That's the "face value" interpretation.
          How this message of love, selflessness, courage, iconoclasm would want to make someone “keep company with Hitler” is beyond reason. Shame on Swed for taking this cheap obligatory shot and kow-towing to the gods of political correctness. He could take a cue from the brave and enlightened conductor Daniel Barenboim, who recognizes that genius art is created by very flawed human beings, and who does not let his Jewish ancestry and faith preclude his championing of this music.
          Boooooooooooooo to the L.A. Times, and boooooooooooooooo to Mark Swed.

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