Fuhrer 'turning in his grave'

An opera by Richard Wagner - whose music and anti-Semitic writings influenced Adolf Hitler - will be performed at a German open-air theatre built under the Nazi regime by an orchestra made up of Israeli and Arab musicians and conducted by a Jew.

Conductor Daniel Barenboim said the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he co-founded, planned to perform the first act of Wagner's Die Walkure next year at Berlin's Waldbuhne - an arena built as part of the complex for the 1936 Olympics by the Nazis.

"Can you imagine that?" Barenboim said. "The Waldbuhne was built by Hitler. The music is Wagner. Played by us! Hitler and Wagner would turn in their graves."

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i4MDbPqtrgkYmcEd0UgHsUu6e_Fg