January 2008 News Archive
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March 2008 performances of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár conducted by Patrick Reynolds in Dayton, Ohio will be attended by Ela Weissberger who performed in the Terezín production
First posted 25 January 2008
We have received the following news from our member Patrick Reynolds about three performances of Hans Krása’s Brundibár (Bumblebee) at Dayton, Ohio this March.
“I am pleased to announce very special performances of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár, March 9, 10 and 11, 2008, at the Victoria Theatre in Dayton, Ohio. This production, presented by the Dayton Opera Association, the Kettering Children’s Choir, the Victoria Theatre Association, and the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, will be conducted by Dvořák Society member Patrick Reynolds.
“The March 9 performances of Brundibár are included on the Victoria Theatre’s Star Attraction Series. The March 10 and 11 performances are presented as part of a year-long education project, Through the Eyes of a Child: Children and the Holocaust.
“For the performances, Ela Weissberger, a Holocaust survivor who played the role of the Cat in the original production at Terezín will visit Dayton to speak with the cast, orchestra and audiences.
“Brundibár is the story of a brother and sister who overcome the threats of a bully with the help of other children, some friendly animals, and music. The opera was first performed in 1942 at a Jewish orphanage in Prague. By 1943 most of the children who performed in it, as well as the composer and set designer, had been interned in the concentration camp Terezín. There, the composer and the set designer reconstructed the score and recreated the settings and costumes. The opera was performed over fifty times at Terezín.”
• About Hans Krása
The composer Hans Krása was born in Prague in 1899 . His father was a Czech lawyer and his mother was of German-speaking Jewish descent. He studied composition with Zemlinsky in Prague and, like Martinů, with Roussel in Paris. After his death in Auschwitz in 1944, his works endured a long period of oblivion before rediscovery began in the mid-1980s.
His compositions include orchestral, vocal and chamber music, together with opera. His full-length opera Verlobung im Traum (Bethrothal in a Dream), based on Dostoyevsky’s Dvadushkin son (Uncle’s Dream), was premièred in Prague under the baton of George Szell in 1933 at the Neues Deutsches Theater (the building on Wilsonova that now houses the State Opera). His incidental music to Adolf Hoffmeister’s play Youth in Play included a number Anna’s Song which became a great popular success, in the manner of some of Kurt Weill’s songs. However, today Brundibár, another collaboration with Hoffmeister, is possibly his most performed piece with productions in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in recent years. Dates of forthcoming performances in Spain and Germany may be found on the web site of publisher Boosey and Hawkes. www.dvorak-society.org
