Word: brundibar
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Your story on the new production of Brundibar, a long-forgotten children's opera rediscovered by artist Maurice Sendak [OPERA, June 2], managed to exclude any mention of the work's composer Hans Krasa, a Czech who died in Auschwitz in 1944. Can anyone imagine an article about the revival of A Long Day's Journey into Night without a reference to Eugene O'Neill? MICHAEL BORISKIN ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR COPLAND HOUSE Cortlandt Manor...
...Stein Weissberger was 11 years old in 1943, when she landed the role of the Cat in the first performance of Brundibar, a children's opera about a gang of kids who take on a greedy organ-grinder. While not a glamorous production, it resonated deeply with its audience, the prisoners of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. "People loved to come and sing along," recalls Weissberger, who was in the camp for three years. "Especially the victory song...
When it opens at the Chicago Opera Theater on June 4, the new Brundibar won't be like a biker film. Nor will it look like an opera about the Holocaust. Sendak has washed the production design with light. He has shifted his color palette from subdued hues to vivid primary schemes. Says director Thor Steingraber: "There are no yellow stars on the children's coats. There's no reference to concentration camps. The set is strictly a lovely Bohemian town...
...will be a visit to the past too for Ela Stein Weissberger, now 72. One of two survivors from the original cast, she will give lectures about her life after several of the shows. She also hopes to join the kids onstage one night. Says Weissberger: "With Brundibar, we forgot hunger, we forgot where we were." --By Heather Won Tesoriero
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