Israeli broadcaster apologises after playing Richard Wagner opera

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan has apologised to the nation after a musical director “erred” in choosing to play the music of Richard Wagner.

Hundreds of listeners lambasted bosses at the broadcaster’s classical music radio station, ‘Voice of Music,’ after a segment from Wagner’s Goetterdaemmerung (Twilight of the Gods) opera was played on Friday.

Wagner was an unapologetic anti-Semite and Hitler’s favourite composer so there has been an unofficial ban on his music in Israel for years, out of respect to the sensitivities of Holocaust survivors.

A spokeswoman for Kan said: “The directives of the Israeli broadcasting corporation have remained as they were for years: Wagner’s music won’t be played on Kan, out of an understanding of the pain such a broadcast would evoke among the Holocaust survivors in our audience.”

She added: “The editor erred in his artistic choice to play the piece, and it was a wrong public decision. We apologise to our listeners.”