TY - BOOK T1 - A Knight at the opera T1 - Heine, Wagner, Herzl, Peretz, and the legacy of der Tannhäuser AU - Garrett, Leah PY - ©2011 PB - Purdue University Press CY - West Lafayette, Ind. LA - eng N1 - online SN - 1612491537, 9781612491530, 9781612491523, 1612491529, 9781557536013, 1557536015 KW - Wagner, Richard / 1813-1883 KW - Tannhäuser KW - Heine, Heinrich / 1797-1856 KW - Herzl, Theodor / 1860-1904 KW - Peretz, Isaac Leib / 1851 or 1852-1915 KW - Wagner, Richard KW - Heine, Heinrich KW - Herzl, Theodor KW - Peretz, Isaac Leib KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German KW - RELIGION / Judaism / History KW - Tannhäuser (Wagner, Richard) KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / Jewish KW - Geschichte KW - Judentum KW - Rezeption N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index N1 - A Knight at the Opera examines the remarkable and unknown role that the medieval legend (and Wagner opera) Tannhauser played in Jewish cultural life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyzes how three of the greatest Jewish thinkers of that era, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Herzl, and I.L. Peretz, used this central myth of Germany to strengthen Jewish culture and to attack anti-Semitism. In the original medieval myth, a Christian knight lives in sin with the seductive pagan goddess Venus in the Venusberg. He escapes her clutches and makes his way to Rome to seek absolution from the Pope. The Pope does not pardon Tannhuser and he returns to the Venusberg. During the course of A Knight at the Opera, readers will see how Tannhuser evolves from a medieval knight, to Heine?s German scoundrel in early modern Europe, to Wagner?s idealized German male, and finally to Peretz?s pious Jewish scholar in the Land of Israel. Venus herself also undergoes major changes from a pagan goddess, to a lusty housewife, to an overbearing Jewish mother. The book also discusses how the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was so inspired by Wagner?s opera that he wrote The Jewish State while attending performances of it, and he even had the Second Zionist Congress open to the music of Tannhauser?s overture. A Knight at the Opera uses Tannhauser as a way to examine the changing relationship between Jews and the broader world during the advent of the modern era, and to question if any art, even that of a prominent anti-Semite, should be considered taboo T3 - Shofar supplements in Jewish studies ER -