Brundibár
Encyclopedia
Brundibár is a children's opera
by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása
with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp
in occupied Czechoslovakia. The name comes from a Czech
colloquialism
for a bumblebee
.
, which served as a temporary educational facility for children separated from their parents by the war. In the winter of 1942 the opera was first performed at the orphanage: by this time, composer Krása and set designer František Zelenka had already been transported to Theresienstadt. By July 1943, nearly all of the children of the original chorus and the orphanage staff had also been transported to Theresienstadt. Only the librettist Hoffmeister was able to escape Prague in time.
Reunited with the cast in Theresienstadt, Krása reconstructed the full score of the opera, based on memory and the partial piano score that remained in his hands, adapting it to suit the musical instruments available in the camp: flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, piano, percussion, four violins, a cello and a double bass. A set was once again designed by František Zelenka, formerly a stage manager at the Czech National Theatre: several flats were painted as a background, in the foreground was a fence with drawings of the cat, dog and lark and holes for the singers to insert their heads in place of the animals' heads. On 23 September 1943, Brundibár premiered in Theresienstadt. The production was directed by Zelenka and choreographed by Camilla Rosenbaum, and was shown 55 times in the following year.
A special performance of Brundibár was staged in 1944 for representatives of the Red Cross who came to inspect living conditions in the camp; what the Red Cross did not know at the time was that much of what they saw during their visit was a show, and that one of the reasons the Theresienstadt camp seemed comfortable was that many of the residents had been deported to Auschwitz in order to reduce crowding during their visit.
Later that year this Brundibár production was filmed for a Nazi propaganda film Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt
(The Führer Gives the Jews a City). All of the participants in the Theresienstadt production were herded into cattle trucks and sent to Auschwitz as soon as filming was finished. Most were gassed immediately upon arrival, including the children, the composer Krása, the director Kurt Gerron
, and the musicians.
The Brundibár footage from the film is included in the Emmy Award
-winning documentary Voices of the Children directed by Zuzana Justman
, a Terezin survivor, who sang in the chorus. Ela Weissberger, who played the part of the cat, appears in the film. The footage appears again in As Seen Through These Eyes, a 2009 documentary directed by Hilary Helstein. There Weissberger describes the opera in some detail, noting that the only time that the children were permitted to remove their yellow stars was during a performance.
and The Town Musicians of Bremen
. Aninka [in English Annette] and Pepíček (Little Joe) are a fatherless sister and brother. Their mother is ill, and the doctor tells them she needs milk to recover. But they have no money. They decide to sing in the marketplace to raise the needed money. But the evil organ grinder Brundibár [who represents Hitler] chases them away. However, with the help of a fearless sparrow, keen cat, and wise dog, and the children of the town, they are able to chase Brundibár away, and sing in the market square.
with illustrations by Maurice Sendak
. Sendak emphasized the symbolism of the opera by drawing the character of Brundibár with a Hitler moustache
. The book was named one of the New York Times Book Review
's 10 Best Illustrated Books of 2003.
The opera was performed in 2003 at Chicago Opera Theater; directed and designed by Sendak, with Tony Kushner's libretto.
In 2005, the book was turned into a full production of the opera, with libretto by Tony Kushner adapted from Hoffmeister's. Sendak and Kris Stone designed the sets and Robin I. Shane designed the costumes for the new production. The opera premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre
where it was performed along with another short Czech opera, Comedy on the Bridge
, with music by Bohuslav Martinů
and libretto by Tony Kushner adapted from Václav Kliment Klicpera
. The opera then moved to the New Victory Theatre
for its Off-Broadway
New York premiere, and Comedy on the Bridge was replaced with a new Kushner play, But the Giraffe. But the Giraffe was about a young girl who was faced with the difficult decision of taking her beloved stuffed giraffe or her uncle's Brundibár score. It served as a curtain raiser for Brundibár.
In 2006, Brundibár and Comedy on the Bridge were staged by the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT.
, Czech Republic, Israel
, and across the United States
. In 1995 in Germany
and in Austria
the opera was performed as a part of a school and memory project in cooperation with survivors from Terezín, such as Herbert Thomas Mandl or Eva Hermannová. The United States professional premiere was presented in 1994 by the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center and followed by performances at the National Holocaust Museum under the direction of Alan Nathan, conductor and Mary Gresock, stage director.
One American version first performed in 2006 seeks to put the history front and center. Entitled Brundibar: Hear My Voice, this version, which was a co-production of Tucson, Arizona's Arizona Onstage Productions and The BASIS School, uses the original Hans Krása score and Adolf Hoffmeister dialogue. Spliced into the opera are new scenes written by Colin Killick, a high school student who had studied Brundibár. These new scenes tell the history of the piece, depicting Hans Krása and others who worked on the piece in Terezin working on Brundibár, from the first performance of Brundibár in Prague in 1941 all the way up to the Red Cross performance in 1944. Apart from Krása, one of the most prominent characters in these new scenes is Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
, the art teacher whose students in Terezin created the heart-rending holocaust children's artwork that has been shown throughout the world. In the Tucson production, all of the children's roles were played by middle and high school students (as in the original) and only the new roles were played by adult actors. The breaks in the original score were written to suggest that the audience are watching both the rehearsals for and the performance of Brundibár for the Red Cross.
The first performances of this version were on March 31 and April 1 at the Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, Arizona, under the direction of veteran touring actor Kevin Johnson. Killick was the associate director, vocal direction was by Ali Renner, and the orchestra was conducted by Martin Majkut. In addition to the new scenes, it also featured projections of artwork from camp inmates (both children and adults) and photographs of Terezin, and a simple but powerful set that had as its dominating feature a large archway reading "Arbeit Macht Frei
", which faced away from the audience to give them a sense of being in the camp. Ela Weissberger, a survivor from the original performances (who originally played the role of Kocour, or the Cat), spoke after each performance about her experiences in the cast of Brundibár and her thoughts as to its message. Similarly Killick spoke about the importance of history and said that "this happens to be about Czechoslovakia in the mid '40s, but it could be about Cambodia, or Rwanda
, or Darfur, it could be about anywhere there is oppression." For this production, the new scenes were done as a staged reading (the new material is written largely in pentameter, but was read as dialogue).
Weissberger said she thought the new material was very accurate and powerful (she was sent a version of the script, helped to proofread it and correct a few minor historical errors) and audience reaction was intensely positive.
A different version of Brundibár (plus Comedy on the Bridge) with scene design by Maurice Sendak
opened in February 2006 at the Yale Rep before moving to The New Victory Theater in New York City.
Another version was performed in Greece in Kozani, from the Public Music School Choir on March 13 and 14 2010.
Opera Fairbanks (Fairbanks, Alaska
) will present this opera November 5, 6 & 7, 2010 by an all-Alaskan, all-children cast. This will include a short presentation by Ela Stein Weissberger, the sole remaining survivor of the original Terezin (Theresienstadt) cast. Musical direction by James Bicigo and stage direction will be by Cindy C. Oxberry of the Washington National Opera.
It was performed in March 2009 with the Michigan Opera Theater Children's Chorus that was visited by Ela Stein Weissberger.
In February 2010, it was performed at Trinity School at River Ridge in Eagan, MN. The cast and the school were visited by Ela Weissberger.
It was performed by the Sacramento Children's Chorus in spring 2010, and the cast was visited by Ela Weissberger.
In May 2011 it was performed in London by the Alyth Children's Theatre on 2 consecutive days. The first performance was followed by a Yom Hashoah Commemoration Service and the second was preceded by songs from the Holocaust by the Alyth Youth Singers.
"Hear My voice" Sources:
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása
Hans Krása
Hans Krása was a Czech composer who was killed in the Holocaust at Auschwitz. He helped to organize cultural life in Theresienstadt concentration camp.-Life:...
with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...
in occupied Czechoslovakia. The name comes from a Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
for a bumblebee
Bumblebee
A bumble bee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species, existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere although they are common in New Zealand and in the Australian state of Tasmania.Bumble bees are social insects that are characterised by black...
.
History
Krása and Hoffmeister wrote the opera in 1938 for a government competition, but the competition was later cancelled due to political developments. Rehearsals started in 1941 at the Jewish orphanage in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, which served as a temporary educational facility for children separated from their parents by the war. In the winter of 1942 the opera was first performed at the orphanage: by this time, composer Krása and set designer František Zelenka had already been transported to Theresienstadt. By July 1943, nearly all of the children of the original chorus and the orphanage staff had also been transported to Theresienstadt. Only the librettist Hoffmeister was able to escape Prague in time.
Reunited with the cast in Theresienstadt, Krása reconstructed the full score of the opera, based on memory and the partial piano score that remained in his hands, adapting it to suit the musical instruments available in the camp: flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, piano, percussion, four violins, a cello and a double bass. A set was once again designed by František Zelenka, formerly a stage manager at the Czech National Theatre: several flats were painted as a background, in the foreground was a fence with drawings of the cat, dog and lark and holes for the singers to insert their heads in place of the animals' heads. On 23 September 1943, Brundibár premiered in Theresienstadt. The production was directed by Zelenka and choreographed by Camilla Rosenbaum, and was shown 55 times in the following year.
A special performance of Brundibár was staged in 1944 for representatives of the Red Cross who came to inspect living conditions in the camp; what the Red Cross did not know at the time was that much of what they saw during their visit was a show, and that one of the reasons the Theresienstadt camp seemed comfortable was that many of the residents had been deported to Auschwitz in order to reduce crowding during their visit.
Later that year this Brundibár production was filmed for a Nazi propaganda film Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt
Theresienstadt (film)
Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet was a black and white projected Nazi propaganda film shot in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt....
(The Führer Gives the Jews a City). All of the participants in the Theresienstadt production were herded into cattle trucks and sent to Auschwitz as soon as filming was finished. Most were gassed immediately upon arrival, including the children, the composer Krása, the director Kurt Gerron
Kurt Gerron
Kurt Gerron was a German Jewish actor and film director.-Life:Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he initially studied medicine but was called up for military service in World War I. Seriously wounded he qualified as a military doctor of the German Army...
, and the musicians.
The Brundibár footage from the film is included in the Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
-winning documentary Voices of the Children directed by Zuzana Justman
Zuzana Justman
Zuzana Justman is a native of the former Czechoslovakia, which she left in 1948. A documentary filmmaker and writer, she now lives in New York, but she has filmed most of her documentaries in the country of her birth and other European countries.-Early life:Her brother was Jiří Robert Pick , Czech...
, a Terezin survivor, who sang in the chorus. Ela Weissberger, who played the part of the cat, appears in the film. The footage appears again in As Seen Through These Eyes, a 2009 documentary directed by Hilary Helstein. There Weissberger describes the opera in some detail, noting that the only time that the children were permitted to remove their yellow stars was during a performance.
Storyline
The plot of the opera shares elements with fairytales such as Hansel and GretelHansel and Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...
and The Town Musicians of Bremen
Town Musicians of Bremen
The Town Musicians of Bremen is a folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Despite the title of the fairy tale, the characters never actually arrive in Bremen...
. Aninka [in English Annette] and Pepíček (Little Joe) are a fatherless sister and brother. Their mother is ill, and the doctor tells them she needs milk to recover. But they have no money. They decide to sing in the marketplace to raise the needed money. But the evil organ grinder Brundibár [who represents Hitler] chases them away. However, with the help of a fearless sparrow, keen cat, and wise dog, and the children of the town, they are able to chase Brundibár away, and sing in the market square.
Symbolism
The opera contains obvious symbolism in the triumph of the helpless and needy children over the tyrannical organ grinder, but has no overt references to the conditions under which it was written and performed. However, certain phrases were to the audience clearly anti-Nazi. Though Hoffmeister wrote the libretto before Hitler's invasion, at least one line was changed by poet Emil Saudek at Terezin, to emphasize the anti-Nazi message. "While the original said,'He who loves so much his mother and father and his native land is our friend and he can play with us,' Saudek's version reads: 'He who loves justice and will abide by it, and who is not afraid, is our friend and can play with us.'"(Karas, p. 103).The Kushner version
In 2003 the opera was adapted into a picture book by Tony KushnerTony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...
with illustrations by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
. Sendak emphasized the symbolism of the opera by drawing the character of Brundibár with a Hitler moustache
Toothbrush moustache
The Toothbrush moustache is a moustache, shaved at the edges, except for three to five centimeters above the centre of the lip...
. The book was named one of the New York Times Book Review
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
's 10 Best Illustrated Books of 2003.
The opera was performed in 2003 at Chicago Opera Theater; directed and designed by Sendak, with Tony Kushner's libretto.
In 2005, the book was turned into a full production of the opera, with libretto by Tony Kushner adapted from Hoffmeister's. Sendak and Kris Stone designed the sets and Robin I. Shane designed the costumes for the new production. The opera premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1968, as the East Bay’s first resident professional theatre. Michael Leibert was the founding artistic director, who was then succeeded by Sharon Ott in 1984. The company runs seven...
where it was performed along with another short Czech opera, Comedy on the Bridge
Comedy on the Bridge
Comedy on the Bridge is an opera in one act by Bohuslav Martinů to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the comedy by Václav Kliment Klicpera.-Performance history:...
, with music by Bohuslav Martinů
Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
and libretto by Tony Kushner adapted from Václav Kliment Klicpera
Václav Kliment Klicpera
Václav Kliment Klicpera was a Czech playwright, author, and poet. He was one of the first presenters of Czech drama, and was especially influential in the foundation of comedic Czech theater....
. The opera then moved to the New Victory Theatre
New Victory Theatre
The New Victory Theater is an Off-Broadway theater located at 209 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, in Midtown Manhattan. The New Victory is New York's first and only theater for children and family audiences...
for its Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
New York premiere, and Comedy on the Bridge was replaced with a new Kushner play, But the Giraffe. But the Giraffe was about a young girl who was faced with the difficult decision of taking her beloved stuffed giraffe or her uncle's Brundibár score. It served as a curtain raiser for Brundibár.
In 2006, Brundibár and Comedy on the Bridge were staged by the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT.
Other versions
The opera has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years, and has been performed in different versions in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Czech Republic, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In 1995 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
the opera was performed as a part of a school and memory project in cooperation with survivors from Terezín, such as Herbert Thomas Mandl or Eva Hermannová. The United States professional premiere was presented in 1994 by the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center and followed by performances at the National Holocaust Museum under the direction of Alan Nathan, conductor and Mary Gresock, stage director.
One American version first performed in 2006 seeks to put the history front and center. Entitled Brundibar: Hear My Voice, this version, which was a co-production of Tucson, Arizona's Arizona Onstage Productions and The BASIS School, uses the original Hans Krása score and Adolf Hoffmeister dialogue. Spliced into the opera are new scenes written by Colin Killick, a high school student who had studied Brundibár. These new scenes tell the history of the piece, depicting Hans Krása and others who worked on the piece in Terezin working on Brundibár, from the first performance of Brundibár in Prague in 1941 all the way up to the Red Cross performance in 1944. Apart from Krása, one of the most prominent characters in these new scenes is Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Frederika "Friedl" Dicker-Brandeis , was an Austrian artist murdered by the Nazi's in their extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau....
, the art teacher whose students in Terezin created the heart-rending holocaust children's artwork that has been shown throughout the world. In the Tucson production, all of the children's roles were played by middle and high school students (as in the original) and only the new roles were played by adult actors. The breaks in the original score were written to suggest that the audience are watching both the rehearsals for and the performance of Brundibár for the Red Cross.
The first performances of this version were on March 31 and April 1 at the Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, Arizona, under the direction of veteran touring actor Kevin Johnson. Killick was the associate director, vocal direction was by Ali Renner, and the orchestra was conducted by Martin Majkut. In addition to the new scenes, it also featured projections of artwork from camp inmates (both children and adults) and photographs of Terezin, and a simple but powerful set that had as its dominating feature a large archway reading "Arbeit Macht Frei
Arbeit macht frei
"'" is a German phrase, literally "work makes free," meaning "work sets you free" or "work liberates". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners...
", which faced away from the audience to give them a sense of being in the camp. Ela Weissberger, a survivor from the original performances (who originally played the role of Kocour, or the Cat), spoke after each performance about her experiences in the cast of Brundibár and her thoughts as to its message. Similarly Killick spoke about the importance of history and said that "this happens to be about Czechoslovakia in the mid '40s, but it could be about Cambodia, or Rwanda
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
, or Darfur, it could be about anywhere there is oppression." For this production, the new scenes were done as a staged reading (the new material is written largely in pentameter, but was read as dialogue).
Weissberger said she thought the new material was very accurate and powerful (she was sent a version of the script, helped to proofread it and correct a few minor historical errors) and audience reaction was intensely positive.
A different version of Brundibár (plus Comedy on the Bridge) with scene design by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
opened in February 2006 at the Yale Rep before moving to The New Victory Theater in New York City.
Another version was performed in Greece in Kozani, from the Public Music School Choir on March 13 and 14 2010.
Opera Fairbanks (Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...
) will present this opera November 5, 6 & 7, 2010 by an all-Alaskan, all-children cast. This will include a short presentation by Ela Stein Weissberger, the sole remaining survivor of the original Terezin (Theresienstadt) cast. Musical direction by James Bicigo and stage direction will be by Cindy C. Oxberry of the Washington National Opera.
It was performed in March 2009 with the Michigan Opera Theater Children's Chorus that was visited by Ela Stein Weissberger.
In February 2010, it was performed at Trinity School at River Ridge in Eagan, MN. The cast and the school were visited by Ela Weissberger.
It was performed by the Sacramento Children's Chorus in spring 2010, and the cast was visited by Ela Weissberger.
In May 2011 it was performed in London by the Alyth Children's Theatre on 2 consecutive days. The first performance was followed by a Yom Hashoah Commemoration Service and the second was preceded by songs from the Holocaust by the Alyth Youth Singers.
Recordings
There are at least six CD recordings of Brundibár available:- 1991 in Czech. Koch International. rereleased Romantic Robot (RR1991) 2 CD-set: Terezín: The Music 1941-44Terezín: The Music 1941-44Terezín: The Music 1941–44 is a 2-CD set with music written by inmates at the Terezín concentration camp during World War II.Volume 1 contains chamber music by Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullmann, and Hans Krása; Volume 2 features the children's opera Brundibár by Krása, and songs by Ullmann and Pavel Haas...
by FISYO (Filmový symfonický orchestr) Prague conducted by Mario Klemens and Bambini di Praga led by Bohumil Kulínský; this was the first available recording in Czech from a two-CD set produced by Alexander Goldscheider and released in 1991, which further contains Krása's string trio Tanec together with music from other leading Terezín composers, namely Viktor UllmannViktor UllmannViktor Ullmann was a Silesia-born Austrian, later Czech composer, conductor and pianist of Jewish origin.- Biography :...
, Pavel HaasPavel HaasPavel Haas was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets.-Pre-war:Haas...
and Gideon KleinGideon KleinGideon Klein was a Czech pianist and composer of classical music, organizer of cultural life in Theresienstadt concentration camp.-Life:... - 1993 in Czech: Channel ClassicsChannel Classics RecordsChannel Classics Records is a record label from the Netherlands, specializing in classical music. The managing director and producer is C. Jared Sacks, who grew up in Boston. Sacks was schooled as a professional horn player at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam...
(CCS 5193) CD titled: Composers from Theresienstadt, 1941-1945: Hans Krása's Brundibár and František DomažlickýFrantišek DomažlickýFrantišek Domažlický was a Czech composer.He was born František Tausig. He was sent to Theresienstadt but survived.-Selected works:Orchestral* Serenade in D for string orchestra, Op. 16...
's Czech Songs; Disman Radio Children's Ensemble, Prague, conducted by Jóža KarasJoza KarasJosef "Joža" Karas was a Polish-born, Czech-American musician and teacher who located and made public music composed by inmates who worked at the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt during World War II....
- in Czech; no texts 1993. - 1995 in German: Live recording of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF of the Austrian Premiere by ARBOS-Company for Music and Theatre in 1995.
- 1996 in English: Arabesque Recordings Z6680: Brundibar and Hebrew and Yiddish Folk Songs; Essex Children's Choir and members of the Vermont Symphony, conducted by Robert DeCormier; 1996 - in English, translation by Jóža Karas.
- 1999 in German: EDA Edition Abseits, www.eda-records.com: Brundibar - Eine Oper fur Kinder; collegium iuvenum, Knabenchor Stuttgart, Madchenkantorei St. Eberhard, conducted by Friedemann Keck; 1999 - two-CD set, in German; the second CD is "Brundibar and the Children of Theresienstadt", a feature with Hannelore Wondschick.
- 2006 in English: Naxos 8.570119; Brundibar and Lori LaitmanLori LaitmanLori Laitman is one of America's most prolific and widely performed composers of vocal music. She has composed two operas, an oratorio, choral works and over 200 songs, setting the words of classical and contemporary poets, among them the lost voices of poets who perished in the Holocaust...
's "I Never Saw Another Butterfly", under the title Music of Remembrance. Also includes Hans Krása's Overture for Small Orchestra. Northwest Boy Choir, conducted by Gerard SchwarzGerard SchwarzGerard Schwarz is an American conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2011.In 2007 Schwarz was named music director of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, having served as principal conductor since 2005...
; 2006 - this recording is in English and is the Tony Kushner version.
Sources
- Joza Karas, Music in Terezin, 1941-1945. New York: Beaufort Books (1985).
- Speeches by Ela Weissberger, Tucson, AZ, March #1, April 1, and April 2
"Hear My voice" Sources:
- Gassen, Sarah Garecht. (2006) "Brundibar Written to Inspire Hope", Arizona Daily Star
- Reel, James. (2006)"Whoever Loves Justice", Tucson Weekly
External links
- Summary from Northeastern University
- "Germans perform Holocaust opera" from the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
- Berkeley Repertory Theatre production
- Brundibár and the Children of Terezín (PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
) - Brundibár recording on Romantic Robot 2-CD set Terezín: The Music 1941-44
- Survivor Eva Hermannová on the rehearsals and performances in Terezín from the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) of the ARBOS-production directed by Herbert GantschacherHerbert GantschacherHerbert Gantschacher is an Austrian director and producer and writer.- Education :...