Orchestra to break taboo

AN Israeli orchestra is to perform a work by Adolf Hitler’s favourite composer, Richard Wagner, in a taboo-breaking concert in Germany.

The Israel Chamber Orchestra’s concert in Wagner’s hometown alongside the annual Bayreuth opera festival today will mark the first time an Israeli orchestra has played Wagner in Germany, Nicolaus Richter, the head of Bayreuth city’s cultural affairs department, said.

The orchestra started rehearsing the Wagner piece, the Siegfrid Idyll, only upon their arrival in Germany on Sunday due to the sensitivities in Israel.

The orchestra will be led by Roberto Paternostro, whose mother survived the Nazi genocide. He is a friend of Katharina Wagner, a great-granddaughter of Wagner and co-director of the Bayreuth festival.