With Wagner and Strauss in Hitler?s Germany And other Biographical Reflections By Rex Harrower, Sampark, Rs 750

Rex Harrower has led a decidedly odd life. His story demands attention on two counts: he lived, as an American, in Germany in the run up to the Second World War; and he was the first member of the ?New World? to become a major player in the opera scene on both sides of the Atlantic. With Wagner and Strauss..., his autobiography of sorts, is thereby invested with some importance for historians and opera enthusiasts.

Disappointed with American attempts to stage opera ? for which he nurtured a precocious love ? the fourteen-year-old Harrower moved to Germany with his mother for a two year stretch that proved to be fecund for his later career. With some German friends and relatives, an endearing enthusiasm, and what seems to have been a great deal of luck, Harrower penetrated the very heart of the German kultur scene, and was thoroughly enthralled. The world to which he was witness, and in which he came to participate, was due shortly to be subsumed by the omnipresent Party. The teenage Harrower could sense the impending doom Hitler?s Nazis signalled but blithely proceeded in his thirst for knowledge of the German language, literature and opera.

Harrower reports that Hitler himself believed that ?wars come and go, but Art remains.? Despite this and the Fuehrer?s occasional patronage of the arts ? two instances of which Harrower reports first hand ? much of this period?s ?Art? did not survive unscathed either the Nazi agenda nor the world war it spawned. The work Hitler disapproved of was banned; that which he approved of was later rejected by a Germany seeking to obliterate all traces of Nazism.

Harrower sketches a year at a German boarding school; the social scene in Weimar, Munich, Milan and Monte Carlo; and an esoteric relationship with neighbour Richard Strauss. He boasts an impressive range of experiences, including being part of the reception party for Chamberlain?s famous appeasement visit, but his spartan style fails to do them justice.

By contrast, Harrower?s all-too-brief descriptions of his passionate reactions to various productions ? Wagner?s Ring cycle at the Bayreuth festival particularly ? convey exactly a young man?s ecstasy at a newly discovered, and impulsively loved, art. This is an ecstasy unbridled by mature reflection and later disillusionment. He fires the reader with an infectious awe for this grand art form.

Harrower also recognizes the attendant problems of this type of theatre, in particular the staging difficulties. His contribution to opera is to offer sound practical solutions to ensure its survival. The rather technical nature of this part of the discourse, complete with diagrams, can seem of little relevance to anyone who isn?t acquainted with the staging of operas. Harrower seems to have attempted to write for the non-specialist as well as the specialist, and it is often hard to reconcile the two.

Harrower does warm up as the book proceeds. He induces a certain respect and even fondness. But, for so interesting a man and so interesting a life, it is not sensational stuff. The prosaic nature of the narrative, especially the last section which he freely admits to writing under duress, deadens the story he tells. Had he been able to express himself through one of his operatic productions, the fiery passion that he clearly possesses would have been more effectively communicated.