Only the sounds of crickets and night flights from Pula Airport broke the silence after the sentence spoken by Svetozar Cvetković at the Minor Fortress on the island of Mali Brijun:
"I was never a member of the Nazi Party."
An hour earlier, the audience had filled to capacity the tribune above the stage eagerly awaiting the last performance plays "On Whose Side" by Ronald Harwood in this season. Her recent performance, directed by Lenka Udovički, is considered the central event of the 26th season of the "Ulysses" Theater.
Investigator and conductor
In the play, in post-war Berlin, the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, played by Belgrade actor Svetozar Cvetković, is interrogated by American Major Steve Arnold, played by Croatian actor Ozren Grabarić.
Arnold in the "American zone" (in which there is cream for coffee!) tries to prove that the great conductor with his artistic authority, knowingly or unknowingly, served the regime that committed unimaginable crimes.
On the one hand, there is an investigator who, in a devastated Germany, does not want to listen to lofty speeches about Beethoven's music while the extent of the Holocaust is still being revealed. On the other side is Furtwängler, who claims that he didn't stay because of Hitler, but because of German music, the audience, the orchestra and the people he could help with his position.
Harwood offers no judgment. He asks the viewer exactly what the original title suggests "Taking Sides" – to take sides.
The smell of burnt human flesh
In my case, as the play progressed, my sympathies did not go towards the favored Furtwängler, but in favor of Major Arnold, who is played by Ozren Grabarić, who is, one would say, unfairly neglected on the Croatian theater, television and film scene.
on_whose_side_ulyssesDSC04967Ozren Grabarić in "On whose side"
My impression, as well as the impression of the people sitting near me, is that Grabarić's arguments, for example, "Have you ever smelled burnt human flesh?" dominate.
We could not see the valorization of that impression in the strength of the applause at the end of the play, because the director Udovički decided that Cvetković and Grabarić go out together to bow to the audience.
For Svetozar Cvetković, this is not the first encounter with this Harvard text - it was almost three decades ago, when he was the manager of Atelier 212. Then, also under the direction of Lenka Udovički, he appointed him as a producer. The main roles were played by Ljuba Tadić and Petar Božović. Now he returns to the piece as an actor and recognizes in it not only a conversation with the past but also a warning addressed to the present.
Conductor of the Third Reich
Historical facts show that Furtwängler was not a member of the Nazi Party, he helped certain persecuted musicians, especially Jews, and clashed with part of the regime apparatus.
At the same time, he remained the most outstanding conductor of the Third Reich, he performed before the Nazi leadership and became a symbol of the cultural prestige of the state that led a war of conquest and carried out genocide against numerous peoples.
He was acquitted of the charges on December 17, 1946 in the process of denazification. Among those who helped him were great musicians who had the moral authority to speak in his favor, among them Yehudi Menuhin and Paul Hindemith. After his release, he could not immediately return to the podium. Only on May 25, 1947, for the first time after the war, he again conducted the Berlin Philharmonic — Beethoven.
And then his career practically exploded again.
He conducted in Salzburg, Lucerne, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Italy and elsewhere, in 1951 he received a huge symbolic role: he opened the first post-war Bayreuth Gala with Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony", in 1952 he again formally became the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, this time for life.
Boycott of the Chicago Orchestra
On the other side of the ocean, things were not going so smoothly. In 1949, Furtwängler was offered the position of principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. However, when it was announced that he would be coming, a group of highly influential musicians launched a campaign against his engagement.
Among them were Arturo Toscanini, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, George Sell and Isaac Stern. They threatened to boycott the show if Furtwängler was hired. The pressure was so strong that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra withdrew its offer.
In other words, he was legally rehabilitated, but part of the international musical elite did not consider that the moral issue was resolved.
The most vocal was Arthur Rubinstein, who believed that Furtwängler had no moral justification to stay in Germany. And Horowitz advocated the position that Furtwängler could have left the country. But there were also great musicians who were on his side - Yehudi Menuhin was particularly outraged by the American boycott and believed that Furtwängler was wronged. He died on November 30, 1954 in Ebersteinburg near Baden-Baden.
And what does the audience say?
"You have artists who are very open in their attacks on the government, but at the same time they left their country and excluded themselves from it. You also have those who stayed and do their work. It's not about the sentence: 'I was just doing my job'. Through their work, they express an artistic and political attitude. That attitude belongs to them, but also to the writer, director and the work they perform. It refers to the place, the regime and current politics!" said Svetozar Cvetković in an interview with Zagreb's "Jutarnji" list" after the premiere.
After a three-hour show (with one intermission), the audience left for the boats that will take them back to Veliki Brijun and Fažana.
The comments about the performance by the spectators from Serbia were particularly interesting:
"This will soon happen here too!" says a woman from Belgrade.
"You're wrong! We thought that even after October 5th, so nothing happened! There won't be October 6th now either," her partner replies resignedly.
"This kind of trial is possible only after a land intervention and a complete defeat as was the case with Germany in World War II. No one is able to fairly judge their countrymen!", concludes their friend.
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