Claiming Wagner for France

A pathbreaking study of the Parisian press's attempts to claim Richard Wagner's place in French history and imagination during the unstable and conflict-ridden years of the Third Reich. Richard Wagner was a polarizing figure in France from the time that he first entered French musical life in the mid nineteenth century. Critics employed him to symbolize everything from democratic revolution to authoritarian antisemitism. During periods of Franco-German conflict, such as the Franco-Prussian War a