656
PARTISAN REVIEW
alL There were a great many people who engaged in hours of selfless
work trying to bring in emigres, whether or not they were good in–
vestments.
David Gress:
Thank you very much. It's time to draw to a close. One
more brief question.
Morris Kotell:
I'm a visiting composer at Adelphi this year. I have one
question for Professor Ash and Professor Rollberg, and another for Pro–
fessor von Bredow. My opera
Dreyfus
was done in Germany a season
ago at the Opera in Bielefeld, and then this season in Vienna. I was
struck by the tremendous difference in the reception. The work is about
the Dreyfus Affair from the perspective of Theodor Herzl, who was a
newspaper correspondent for the
Neue Presse,
and subsequently became
the father of modem Zionism. The Germans were extremely enthusiastic
and warm in their reception, and the reception by the Viennese was
much cooler, almost an embarrassed response.
In
fact, the only really en–
thusiastic discussions about the Viennese performance were the ones that
appeared in the German press from critics who missed the performance in
Bielefeld and then traveled to Vienna.
Professor Rollberg, you talked about individual responses to situa–
tions in which one can act in an evil or in a courageous manner. Is there
such a thing as a German national trait, a Viennese national trait? Profes–
sor von Bredow, I have not studied economics formally. But, as any
musician knows, whoever pays the piper calls the tune . With Germany as
the economic engine of Europe, it seems inevitable at some point that
they are going to call the tune. The question is, when are they going to
get over their bashfulness and exercise their power?
Peter Rollberg:
Well, I don't want to get more into laymen's psy–
chologies. But I believe that each person's behavior consists of both
collectivist and individual traits, and the mixture differs from person to
person, and from culture to culture. I just meant that in Russia and in
Germany there is a stronger emphasis on collectivist pressures and less
courage to make individual decisions, to hold individual opinions.
Therefore, a solution may be to strengthen individual responses and di–
versity. For me, political correctness is a totalitarian tendency.
David Gress:
Any comments from the panel?
Wilfred Von Bredow: I
beg my Austrian friends not to shoot me, but
