>>10683888https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6QA cartoon figure holding a baton, stands next to a music stand in front of some musicians. The figure has a large nose and prominent forehead. His sideburns turn into a wispy beard under his chin.
Caricature of Wagner by Karl Clic in the
Viennese satirical magazine, Humoristische Blätter (1873). The exaggerated features refer to rumours of Wagner's Jewish ancestry.
Wagner's hostile writings on Jews, including Jewishness in Music, corresponded to some existing trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century;[246] however, despite his very public views on these themes, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters.[247] There have been frequent suggestions that antisemitic stereotypes are represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of Alberich and Mime in the Ring, Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, and Klingsor in Parsifal are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not identified as such in the librettos of these operas.[248][n 21] The topic of Wagner and the Jews is further complicated by allegations, which may have been credited by Wagner, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer.[249]
Some biographers have noted that Wagner in his final years developed interest in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, notably Gobineau's belief that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races.[250] According to Robert Gutman, this theme is reflected in the opera Parsifal.[251] Other biographers (such as Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877;[252] but he displayed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880.[253]
