An opera company that does not perform Richard Wagner is akin to a theatre company refusing to schedule Shakespeare. But this is what is happening at the leading Israeli opera company. The company’s newly appointed director, David Stern, told the media last week that he would not be programming any Wagner.

“I don’t think it’s such a great loss to Israeli audiences. I still conduct Wagner in other places around the world, but there are many other things that are worthwhile to conduct here,” Stern told daily newspaper Haaretz, on Wednesday.

Well there are no doubt many Israelis who would beg to differ with Stern’s odd view of the cultural worth of Wagner. Wagner is rightly regarded as one of the greatest of opera composers. He revolutionized the way in which opera was composed and performed. He was a colossus of the late Romantic period.

But Wagner was anti-Semitic, his music purloined by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi ideology and his family close to the Nazi regime, all of which occurred long after Wagner was dead it should be said. But it is for that reason that he remains even today a controversial figure in Israel. But is Stern doing Israel any favours by continuing to deprive that country of the opportunity to hear and be enriched by Wagner’s music? And isn’t it a bit dangerous to be banning composers on the basis of their politics or philosophical outlook?

Daniel Barenboim, perhaps the most prominent Israeli musician on the world stage these days, thinks it’s time for Israel to get over its official hate campaign against Wagner. Barenboim in 2001 broke the ban on the playing of Wagner in Israel by performing an extract from the opera Tristan and Isolde in Jerusalem. While some in the audience left in protest, Barenboim received a rapturous ovation from those who remained.

If David Stern and other musicians in Israel are going to be consistent in their application of principle then why do they not draw up a list of composers who’s works they will not perform for political reasons. How about Russian giants Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, both of whom had their music used by Stalin for propaganda purposes. Or what about composers such as Chopin, who was a notorious anti-Semite. And what of Anton Bruckner, who saw himself as a disciple of Wagner and who’s music was favoured by the Nazis. An extract of Bruckner’s 7th symphony was played when Hitler’s death was announced on German radio in 1945. None of these composers has been the subject of an unofficial ban in Israel.

It is surely time that Israel began to bury its hatred towards Wagner. As Avi Chanani, a classical music broadcaster in Israel put it in 2002:

Wagner was a revolutionary in music. His work is central to the development of European music. Without Wagner it is difficult to understand the history of music.

That is one important consideration for playing his music. But what I feel is cardinal in my decision to present Wagner on the radio is my belief that in a democracy, the public has a right to know; it must be exposed to all information.

David Stern should rethink his decision because Wagner’s music transcends politics.