I recall reading in Cosima's Diaries that Wagner exhibited glee when a fire (it was in Russia or France, I forget which) killed a considerable number of Jews. I have tried to find this passage again but to no avail. Since I don't read German, I can't use the concordance of her diaries recently published. Can anyone identify the volume and page of this incident for me? Thanks.
From Tom Kaufman, 'Wagner vs. Meyerbeer,'
The Opera Quarterly 19.4 (2003) 644-669:
QuoteIn her diary entry of 18 December 1881, Cosima Wagner wrote that her husband was telling her about a recent performance of Lessing's Nathan der Weise, during which a Jewish member of the audience stood up and shouted "bravo!" in response to a speech praising the Jews. Wagner, evidently remembering the Ringtheater fire (which Cosima describes as a vehement joke), remarked that "all Jews should burn to death at a performance of Nathan."
Is this what you're looking for? If so, the reference is:
Cosima Wagner'sDiaries, vol. 2, 1878 -1883, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, trans. Geoffrey Skelton (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), pp. 772-73.