However, their relationship was not nearly as simple as Daniel suggested. Degas’ first painting of Halévy demonstrates the complexity of his feelings toward his Jewish best friend. Portrait of Friends in the Wings (1879) does not portray Halévy as a Semitic stereotype, but Degas’ nascent anti-Semitism colors the painting nonetheless. Although Degas had adopted the abstract prejudices espoused in the anti-Semitic newspapers he read, he had not yet applied them to his friend Halévy. At first glance, Portrait of Friends in the Wings does not provide any insight into Degas’ opinion of Halévy. There are no overt political messages in this pastel and tempura image, and no reason to expect them. 
In the painting, also known as Ludovic Halévy and Albert Boulanger-Cavé, the eponymous figures converse backstage at the opera. Halévy’s likeness has Semitic features, a long, thin nose and a full beard, but Halévy actually had those characteristics. Degas did not give him a bulbous or hooked nose, protruding lips or a grotesque sneer, traits observed in the anti-Semitic cartoons popular at the time (Hyman, 91). Rather, Halévy’s somber face is imbued with a dignity not found in stereotypical Jewish caricatures.
While Halévy’s portrait is not overtly anti-Semitic or even unflattering, the composition has similarities to the ubiquitous hate rhetoric. While newspapers and cafés were abuzz with claims that Jews did not belong in France and were sucking the life out of the country, Degas created a portrait in which Halévy is ostracized in his own element, the opera. More than that, his mere presence seems to darken the cheerful scene. Despite the bright, colorful backdrop, Halévy appears isolated on his own gloomy set, his haggard expression incongruous with the rest of the painting. Halévy was disturbed by his image in the portrait, writing in his journal, “Myself, serious in a frivolous place; that’s what Degas wanted to achieve” (qtd. Pickvance, 50). 
With those words, Halévy recognized that Degas had deliberately created a dichotomy, a separation between serious and frivolous and between his figure and its surroundings. Degas used Halévy’s mood to demonstrate that he did not belong in the lighthearted setting and that he no longer fit in his own world.
Still, Degas does not use the same negative Jewish stereotypes in Friends in the Wings as he does in his depiction of Jewish banker Ernest May, painted around the same time. At the Bourse (1879), also known as Portraits at the Stock Exchange, shows May as a stereotypical hook-nosed Jew with bulging eyes and lips, and the scene incorporates the anti-Semitic mythology of a worldwide Jewish financial conspiracy. At the Bourse demonstrates that Degas believed in the theory that Jews were ugly, nefarious capitalists, but as we can see in his painting of Halévy, he had yet to apply those stereotypes to all Jews. While he was firm in his hatred, Degas could still make an exception for Halévy.
left and top right: Degas, Edgar. Portrait of Friends in the Wings. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
bottom right: Degas, Edgar. At the Bourse. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.