Berlin orchestra's planned Tehran concert angers Israel
The Israeli-Argentinian conductor Daniel Barenboim has been in talks to take one of Germany’s top orchestras to Iran to perform a concert, drawing angry protests from Israel.
Berlin State Opera said Barenboim, 72, its general music director, was in discussions with Iran about a possible concert in Tehran.
It said Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had agreed to take over the patronage of the concert as he “supports Daniel Barenboim’s dedication to making music accessible to all people, irrespective of national, religious or ethnic boundaries”. Further details of the concert would be announced once the negotiations have been concluded, the opera house said.
Israel’s culture minister, Miri Regev, said she would send a letter of protest to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, calling on her to block the concert.
“In my letter I shall stress that Daniel Barenboim’s appearance in Iran harms Israel’s efforts to prevent the nuclear agreement and gives encouragement to de-legitimisation of Israel,” she wrote in Hebrew on her Facebook page.
“Iran is a state which supports terror, is behind Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas and its leaders have blood on their hands. I believe that Germany would be acting rightly if it were to cancel the appearance of the orchestra and its conductor.” Regev accused Barenboim – who founded a groundbreaking youth orchestra called the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999 that brings together Israeli, Egyptian, Iranian, Jordanian, Lebanese and Palestinian musicians – of “using culture as a platform for his anti-Israel political views”.
Barenboim conducted the Divan Orchestra in a concert in Ramallah in 2005. He has taken honorary Palestinian citizenship and is also controversial in Israel for his efforts to have the music of Richard Wagner, the German composer adored by Adolf Hitler, performed in the Jewish state.
Iran reached a deal with world powers last month under which western-led sanctions against the country will be lifted in exchange for a new inspections regime and curbs on Tehran’s atomic programme.