Flagstad’s supporters made their views known in impassioned letters to the local press. As one reads their reflections, it is clear that those backing the soprano offered a more compelling case than those who would silence her. In the words of one reader, the “controversy makes me ill with its unleashed intolerance.” What right did the auditorium’s board have to “smear her?” To another distressed reader, Flagstad’s vilification was “so ugly” that he exhorted all “decent” people to repudiate such “bigotry.” And from just outside the city, one man’s plea was unforgettable: “I must bow my head in shame, for here indeed is the dark side of America.”169 Finally, a local woman linked the controversy to the recent war by excoriating the veterans’ groups that had led the ban. Their attitude betrayed “the very intolerance against which they and their comrades . . . fought, bled and died.”170
Those who would keep Flagstad off the stage had a more difficult position to defend, and their efforts fell short of the mark. The most vocal of the opera house trustees who had voted for the ban, Richard Newhall, did little to help matters when he referred repeatedly in a public hearing to “Madame Flagstaff,” declaring, he had “never heard of Madame Flagstaff before this thing came up.”171 Leaving a meeting in late July in which the mayor had argued that the Norwegian government had cleared her of wartime collaboration, one soldier was heard muttering, “I’d like to know who the hell Norway is—telling us who can sing here and who can’t.”172
As the Flagstad drama neared its final act, a Menlo Park man invoked the memory of the war in support of the Norwegian soprano. Writing to the local paper, the aptly named Rex Gunn linked the case to American ideals: “I can vouch for the attitudes of at least six World War II dead, who were my friends.” Three had no desire to go to the opera, but they would not keep anyone else from attending. The others enjoyed opera. “I brushed shoulders with scores of other persons who were killed in the Pacific.” None spoke of silencing “beautiful music as a war aim.”173
In the end, beautiful music would not be silenced in San Francisco. On August 1, the trustees of the War Memorial Opera House voted 6–5 to rescind the ban, which they had passed two weeks earlier. One trustee, a prominent local attorney who voted in support of Flagstad, said he was convinced that no ill effects would result from her performance.174 Another, who had switched his vote from anti- to pro-Flagstad, revealed that his fellow veterans had threatened him and he was told they were planning to picket his employer’s office. “I don’t like it a bit,” he said. The “wrong people” were in charge of groups like the American Legion. What they had forgotten is that America’s policy is one of “tolerance.”175
That same day a San Francisco Chronicle editorial set the Flagstad battle against the backdrop of a larger set of American values. In proclaiming a victory for those who embraced facts over those who rejected them, the editors reminded San Franciscans that American principles concerning the “presumption of innocence” and a discomfort with censoring art for political purposes had been preserved. The “hysterical” case against Flagstad had been exposed, allowing the correct decision to carry the day.176
Several weeks later, on the last day of September, the much-maligned and much-appreciated soprano sang the role of Isolde under the baton of William Steinberg in a performance to a packed house. The reviews were splendid, with critic Alfred Frankenstein calling Flagstad the era’s “supreme Wagnerian soprano.” Her voice was an “instrument of incomparable golden glory supported by the most unfailing perfect ear in opera.”177 While the performance was superb, Flagstad’s professional plight remained uncertain, for she had yet to return to a certain stage some three thousand miles to the east, where she had achieved her greatest American triumphs.
The man who would be responsible for the soprano’s return to the Metropolitan, Rudolf Bing, arrived in New York from Britain in late 1949 to begin planning the work he would take on as the company’s new general manager, a position he would assume in the 1950–1951 season.178 While Flagstad had been performing in New York and elsewhere since 1947, the decision to bring her to the Met was one Bing realized would be highly controversial, which he explained in a letter to Bruno Walter, who would conduct Fidelio at the Met, with Flagstad appearing as Leonore. “I quite expect there will be a row about her re-appearance,” he wrote the conductor, who, having fled Nazi Germany a generation earlier, knew something about the unpleasant intersection between politics and music. Like Walter, the Vienna-born Bing had left Germany after Hitler came to power; the newly hired general manager claimed he was “confident” it would “all blow over by the time” she reached the Met. In any case, he wrote, it was right to “engage her. After all, there must be an end to political discriminations.” Moreover, he told Walter, she was, without question, “one of the vocal phenomena of our time.” It would be wrong to keep her away from New York.179
In January 1950, the Met’s board approved Flagstad’s contract and within a year, she would again grace the most famous operatic stage in America. But many found Bing’s decision deeply troubling, and they made their feelings known, often venomously. But Bing, who was Jewish, was prepared for the onslaught, and as he suggested to a distressed patron, he did not believe he had the right to close the door to a great artist whom the US government had allowed to enter the country. “This is an artistic institution, and not a political one.”180
Rudolf Bing
Over the course of many months, people sent several hundred letters to Bing. Reading through them today leaves one sobered by the impact Flagstad’s impending return had on people from all walks of life, some devoted to opera and some who could not have distinguished Wagner from Verdi. The capacity of classical music to rouse the emotions of the public is palpable in this decades-old correspondence, which now rests in the Met’s archive.181 Of those who wrote to Bing, a minority were appreciative and wished to thank him for bringing Flagstad back to the Met. One New York couple, who described themselves as “lovers of all that is best in music and art,” wrote in April 1950, “We believe that nothing—neither political nor nationalistic prejudice should interfere with the production of what is best in opera. The wonderful singing of Mme. Flagstad is a fine first step.” As was his habit, Bing penned a respectful response, thanking them and explaining his decision. In his standard reply, he spoke of the Met’s obligation to present “the best talent available.” Beyond that, he said, the company had “a duty not to take any action that may offend the public concept of human rights.” The Met had waited for “several years after the war,” inquired carefully into Flagstad’s activities, and found “no evidence that she was disloyal to this, or her own country, or that she participated in, or supported Nazism.” Since the end of the war, Bing told many who wrote to him, Flagstad had sung, “without incident, in countries which were our Allies, and which suffered from Nazi attacks.” She had also performed across America. He was convinced that Met audiences should have the chance to experience her superb artistry.182
Another supporter, writing to Bing from Indianapolis, enclosed a letter she had penned to the Indianapolis Star arguing that Flagstad had been attacked unfairly. She wanted Bing to know that she backed his decision, telling him she was grateful “you have the courage of your convictions, which may seem a trite remark; but it is an old truth.” In response, Bing expressed gratitude for such sentiments, which go “a long way in encouraging me to believe that I am on the right track.”183
But if Bing had his supporters, the correspondence reveals a larger number who opposed him, often brutally. The viciousness of some of the letters toward both Bing and Flagstad is, at times, jaw-dropping. “Be sure to have a big supply of swastikas on hand and completely displayed . . . when Kirkstink Flagstad” appears next season, wrote one correspondent, who signed the missive “An American Citizen.” A telegram to Bing sneeringly congratulated him for signing Flagstad, “the Queen of song who could sing (as she did) AGAINST THE AGONIZED MOANS OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS; THE CRIES OF TH
E STARVING CHILDREN AND THE DEATH SCREAMS IN THE NAZI GAS CHAMBERS.” After quoting from a particularly nasty Walter Winchell column, this unnamed writer concluded: “SHAME ON YOU MR. BING. SHAME ON THE METROPOLITAN OPERA.”184
In a letter headed “YOUR FIRST, LAST AND ONLY WARNING,” one xenophobic correspondent from Washington wrote to “Rudolph Bing,” explaining, “I do not address you ‘Mister’ as you do not deserve this American title for your stand and statements regarding that huzzy, lousy, bitchy Flagstad.” This Washingtonian was deeply disturbed that Bing had hired a foreigner, rather than an American, asking how he could “pluck such a louse.” The self-described Met listener said that Americans, “especially our beloved G.I.’s,” would not “allow the infiltration of such trash,” and suggested Flagstad should take the “first boat” home, adding, “perhaps a plane would be better as they some times crash.” The letter concluded with the following warning: “Don’t take this lightly. If you book that damn Nazi Flagstad YOU WILL BE SORRY AND SO WILL THE BITCH.”185 A more concise Floridian sent Bing a copy of a letter critical of Flagstad from his local paper, which he enclosed for Bing’s “enlightenment.” The writer encouraged Bing to read it, after which he declared, “please oblige me and drop dead.”186
Of the many anti-Flagstad letters Bing received, not all were this malevolent. Some conveyed the thoughtful reflections of those determined to explain their opposition to the singer’s return, though they often inaccurately labeled Flagstad a Nazi, a fascist, or a Nazi sympathizer. Writing from New York, a Mrs. Ehrlich said she recognized music was “international,” noting, “we all respect Wagner’s music . . . because as far as we know,” he was “not a traitor.” Nevertheless, bringing Flagstad back to the opera house was a “disgrace to America because the graves of our American boys are too fresh yet and because they died through direct cause of people” like her. As long as the soprano was linked to the opera house, Ehrlich would not enter the building. In another letter, a group of Met subscribers wrote jointly to express their opposition to Flagstad: “We have it on very good authority that Mme. Flagstad is shunned in her native Norway.” Criticizing Bing and his supporters for their “callousness,” they asserted that the Met’s historical memory was “too short.” It was essential to “round up all known Nazi sympathizers.”187
Writing Bing from Manhattan, a Met subscriber, Ethel Cohen, penned a heartfelt message worth quoting at length: “You have presented many of us with a dilemma and a very serious inner conflict,” she said. “Are principles, ideals, ethics and decency of any significance in the development of America?” Or are these “unimportant where Art is concerned?” Beseeching Bing, Cohen asked, “What are we to tell our children, many of whom are now lingering in hospitals because of the war which the Nazis brought to the world? Shall we tell them that the future of America depends on our kow-towing to Nazi artists because of their superior voices?” Must we “put art above morality and humanity?” Finally, she turned to the Holocaust, which was the subtext of many of the letters Bing received: “When I think that six million of my people, the Jews (I don’t know whether or not you were born a Jew; but if you were you might have thought deeply before engaging Flagstad) who were brought to the crematoria while Flagstad survived as a Nazi and is now being honored, I feel degraded and shamed before God to support an institution whose sense of honor and decency mean nothing.”188
Bing responded almost immediately. “I have sincere respect for your feelings.” But he asked that she respect his “convictions.” He had left Hitler’s Germany, he wrote, soon after the dictator had come to power. By fleeing, “I have lost friends and . . . all my possessions.” But now his task was to “run the greatest operatic organization in the world,” and he would do so “without prejudice of race or politics, on the basis of quality.” After pointing out that Flagstad had been cleared of all wrongdoing, Bing posed a question to Ethel Cohen, though one can imagine he was addressing the hundreds who had written him: “Is there to be no end to hatred?” His decision was based solely on the soprano’s “vocal and artistic qualities and on nothing else.”189
In the Met archive, one even encounters a letter written by the soprano herself, thanking Bing for his support in the face of all “the trouble which has been placed at your door” in light of the decision to engage her. As she told the incoming general manager, “throughout my entire life, both as a person and as an artist, I have only tried to behave in an honest and straightforward manner.” It has been very difficult “to face the accusations . . . heaped upon me.” She had been accused of disloyalty to Norway, even by some Norwegians. It was “inconceivable,” she insisted, “that anyone would accuse me of disloyalty” to her “beloved homeland.” She emphasized how much she loved singing in America, especially at the Met, where she would do all she could to help make Bing’s first year successful.190
For those worried that the general manager would buckle under the pressure of the anti-Flagstad forces, there was little to fear, for Bing was determined to bring Flagstad back. Responding to one writer who declared that those defaming Flagstad were engaging in a “hate campaign” based on “falsity, perversion and deceit,” Bing said he was “unperturbed.”191
Despite the deluge of fevered opinion, there was opera to be heard, and Flagstad’s return to the Met in Tristan in January 1951, with Fritz Reiner on the podium, was a triumph. It had been ten years since she had appeared there, having last performed on the revered stage, ironically enough, in the same opera in 1941. The reaction was spectacular. No pickets paraded outside and the plainclothes officers patrolling inside had nothing to do but listen to Wagner. As the overture ended, the audience roared, causing an uncalled for break in the music, which surely disturbed the exacting Reiner. Before the music resumed, a woman seated upstairs captured the evening’s spirit, crying out, “Welcome back!” As the first act concluded, half the audience stood to cheer the singer, and at midnight, with the end of the performance, the reaction was delirious, as Flagstad received repeated ovations. Indeed, the Flagstad-starved New Yorkers demanded nineteen curtain calls.192 In the words of one critic, the soprano’s devotees had “come, heard, and were once again conquered” by the possessor of “the world’s grandest operatic voice.”193
The question about the artist’s relationship with Nazism persisted into the mid-1950s, this time touching the activities of a musician, Herbert von Karajan, who had an identifiable connection to the Nazi Party. Karajan’s visit with the Berlin Philharmonic—the first time he had conducted in the United States—was marked by protest and condemnation, as the Austrian was pilloried for his Nazi Party membership and the years he had worked in Hitler’s Reich. Born in Salzburg in 1908, Karajan had an auspicious start as a gifted young pianist, after which he demonstrated an aptitude for conducting. Beginning his professional career in the opera house at Ulm, Karajan then moved to Aachen, where he would direct the opera and, soon after, the symphony. In 1936, his talent on the podium would be rewarded with the opportunity to conduct the Vienna State Opera, which he led in a performance of Tristan, to be followed two years later with debuts in Berlin with both the Berlin Philharmonic and the State Opera. In 1933, soon after Hitler seized power, Karajan joined the Nazi Party, a development that would cause problems for him not only with Allied authorities after the war, but also with some in postwar America who were disturbed by his connection to Hitler’s regime. Despite this, by early 1955, when he came to the United States with the Berlin Philharmonic, Karajan was one of Europe’s leading conductors.194 (Furtwängler had been scheduled to lead the tour, but he had died a few months earlier.)
The Berliners’ first American performance was set to take place in the nation’s capital on February 27, but even before the ensemble reached the United States, newspaper coverage highlighted the opposition that had begun simmering in anticipation of the tour. “We must prove that music has nothing to do with politics,” said Dr. Gerhart von Westerman, the orchestra’s manager. “It is possible there will
be objections to us,” he acknowledged, but “we hope we can win over the objectors through our music.” Like Karajan, Westerman had belonged to the Nazi Party, and would also become an object of discontent among those opposing the orchestra’s American journey, which took it to nineteen cities over six weeks. While some orchestra members had belonged to the Nazi Party and about half had played in the ensemble during the war years (they were reportedly granted an exemption from military service by Hitler), this would not become a significant issue for American audiences.195
Herbert von Karajan
A few days before the group reached the United States, however, more than seven hundred musicians from the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 signed a petition asking their board to prevent the ensemble from performing in New York, where three concerts were scheduled. The petition stated that both the orchestra’s conductor and manager had Nazi records and pointed out, erroneously, that the tour was being subsidized by the US government. This was unacceptable, the union said. According to the petition, the Nazi Party membership of the conductor and the manager meant that both bore “responsibility for the death and exile of countless musicians” in Nazi Germany. In response, an official from Columbia Artists Management, which was representing the German ensemble, said the tour was fully funded by the German government.196
In light of the petition, Westerman, who was still in Germany, addressed the issue of his and Karajan’s Nazi Party membership, claiming they had joined the organization only in a “formal” sense, so that they could continue with their work in music. (Westerman said he himself had joined the Party in 1933.) Readers of the New York Times also learned that Karajan’s membership in the Nazi Party led American authorities to prohibit him from conducting from the war’s end until 1947, when he was permitted to lead the Vienna Philharmonic.197
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