Theresienstadt concentration camp, or TerezÃn as it was usually called, was an oddity, even by the Nazi’s standards. They used it as transit camp, before carting people off to Auschwitz. But more than that, they used it as propaganda, the “model Jewish settlement”—the beautiful, special place where Jews would be resettled under Hitler’s plan, before he went full-steam ahead with “The Final Solution.” As such, people placed in TerezÃn were given privileges that the others were not. Concerts, theater, books to read—even opera.
The words opera and Holocaust very rarely make their way into the same conversation, let alone the same sentence. It is difficult to imagine, then, that an Austrian composer and pianist by the name of Viktor Ullmann not only contemplated the great operatic tradition while imprisoned in TerezÃn, but was actually able to compose one. Scribbled on the back of camp records and lists of prisoners to be sent to the gas chambers, Ullmann penned a work called The Emperor of Atlantis, which is largely about life and death having lost their meaning.
And while both the composer and the librettist, Peter Kien, were ultimately murdered in Auschwitz, the score was miraculously smuggled out and resurfaced in London before ultimately receiving its premiere some 30 years later in Amsterdam. I don’t have any excerpts of the piece, but I do have another piece Ullmann wrote, and others by four more composers who were part of the unusual, sadly surreal musical scene at TerezÃn.
1. Gideon Klein
Klein was studying music in Prague when the Nazis closed all institutions of higher learning in the occupied Czech territories. He was sent to TerezÃn in December, 1941, but was then sent to Auschwitz and ultimately to Fürstengrube, where he was murdered in the gas chambers.
Here’s an excerpt from his Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello.
2. Karel Svenk
Svenk was an actor, director, writer, and composer before the war. Svenk was one of the artists who helped mount many productions at TerezÃn, including an all-male cabaret. He was murdered in 1945.
Here’s an excerpt from his song, “Pod destnikem.”
3. Erwin Schulhoff
Schulhoff studied piano with Debussy for a short spell. He was even awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in 1913 for his piano achievements and won the same prize as a composer some years following WW I. He was sent to TerezÃn in 1941 and then murdered in the Wülzburg concentration camp in August, 1942.
Here’s a bit from Schulhoff’s Suite for Chamber Orchestra.
4. Pavel Haas
Haas was sent to TerezÃn in 1941, and composed several pieces during his stay, although only three of them have been preserved. One of them, Study for String Orchestra, was immortalized when a performance, in the presence of the composer, was included in the Nazi propaganda film, Der Führer Schenkt den Jüden eine Stadt. (Hitler gives the Jews a Town) Haas died in Auschwitz in October, 1944.
Here’s an excerpt from his Suite for Piano, Op. 13: Pastorale
5. Viktor Ullmann
Ullmann kept very busy at TerezÃn. Besides composing and accompanying, he also penned critiques of some of the musical events that Klein and others put on. In 1944 he was deported Birkenau at Auschwitz, where he was killed in the gas chambers. Here’s an excerpt from his String Quartet, Op. 46
FYI: Many more composers were killed during the war and even more blacklisted. This list is only a partial representation.
Check out past On Music posts here >>
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Svenk was the subject of a documentary I saw a couple of years ago on the History Channel.
posted by CCBC on 2-17-2009 at 4:49 am
Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister wrote the opera Brundibar 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 Prague, 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 Krasa and set designer Frantisek 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 fortunate to escape Prague in time.
Reunited with the cast in Theresienstadt, Krasa 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 Frantisek Zelenka, formerly a stage manager at the Czech National Theatre. 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.
Most of the participants in the Theresienstadt production were transported to Auschwitz and killed shortly after the performance for the Red Cross was over. One child, Ela Weissburger, who played Kocour, or the Cat, survived because she was taken ill and in the infirmary — Krása was later exterminated in Auschwitz.
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 Krasa 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 Krasa 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 Krasa, 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 first performances of this version were on March 31 and April 1 2006 at the Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, Arizona, under the direction of the artistic director of Arizona Onstage Productions, Kevin Johnson. In addition to the new scenes, it also featured projections of artwork from camp inmates (both children and adults) and photographs of Terezin. Ela Weissberger, the survivor from the original performances, spoke after each performance about her experiences in the cast of Brundibár and her thoughts as to its message. 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).
posted by Dolly on 2-17-2009 at 11:38 am