Because I’ve recently been attacked by crazily politically correct individuals who wonder why I would direct Wagner in the first place, I now have a series of prepared answers. The first one is a question: Why did Daniel Barenboim conduct Wagner and even do it in Israel? No doubt about it, Wagner’s personal character is awful, and worse, he was an antisemite. But he’s not responsible for Hitler and the Holocaust any more than Karl Marx was responsible for Stalin.
