On a late summer’s day in Prague in 1970, Holocaust survivor Eliška Kleinová opened a briefcase and handed a pile of music manuscripts to Joza Karas, a Czech-American who was in the early stages of research to unearth and revive music written in the Terezin concentration camp during World War II. Among the manuscripts–including six pieces written by Kleinová’s late brother, Gideon Klein–was the piano reduction and complete orchestral version (for 13 instruments) of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibar. Brundibar, its solo roles and chorus consisting entirely of child singers, was among the most popular musical productions in the camp, receiving an astonishing 55 performances between September 1943 and October 1944, when the last major transports left the ghetto town carrying many of the camp’s remaining musicians–including children and the opera’s composer–to Auschwitz.
After the war, performances were few and proper performing editions of the score were non-existent. Karas, whose book Music in Terezin 1941-1945 (Pendragon) is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn about one of the more remarkable and tragic chapters in the history of the Holocaust, and of 20th-century music, brought the scores back to the U.S. and proceeded to make a performing edition of Brundibar, along with an English translation. He subsequently gave the North American premiere of the opera (in Czech) in 1975 and in his and Milada Javora’s English translation in 1977.
The point of all of this is that for the present production, Tony Kushner seems to either be unaware of or deliberately ignores many of the above facts. First, there already is a perfectly fine English translation/edition of the opera, published 20 years ago (the liner notes claim Brundibar was “republished in 1992”!). The notes also perpetuate the myth that the opera’s cast of children needed “constant replenishing” after most shows–not true; and Kushner claims he wasn’t able to find out whether Brundibar won a pre-war competition, when the facts are easily discovered in Karas’ book. What’s more, Kushner amazingly refers to the title character Aninka as “Aninku”, a complete misunderstanding of Czech case endings that makes you wonder just how carefully the librettist attended to detail for this project.
Even more significantly, in his zeal for modern “immediacy”–making the character of Brundibar more “three-dimensional” and elaborating on the opera’s already clear and pointed conclusion regarding the importance of collective courage and perseverance in the face of unspeakable evil–Kushner has presumptuously undermined the original work’s simple, unmannered, honest child-message and imposed an adult “sophistication” that’s out of place and completely unnecessary.
Further, the producers made the awful decision to use adult singers with polished, squeaky-clean voices, combined with production values that make the whole thing sound more like a Broadway musical than “a little opera, born of a serious mind and yet so pleasant to the ear” (Dr. Kurt Singer, Terezin, 1943). The whole point of Krasa’s and original librettist Adolf Hoffmeister’s work–the juxtaposition of innocence and the fundamentally good and uncorrupt with the forces of amorality, corruption, and evil–is completely lost here. And when comparing the Karas English version with this one, the primary difference is that the earlier one is absolutely true to the original and Kushner’s is, well, Kushner’s.
If you really want to experience this opera as close to its original conception and performance values as we can expect today, go for the Channel Classics recording, performed in Czech by a real Czech children’s choir and child soloists. It’s a gem, and it captures the essence, vitality, and drama of the work like no other–and the singing is really, really good!
There have been many musical settings of poetry written by children in Terezin, all with the title “I never saw another butterfly”, after the poem by 20-year-old Terezin inmate Pavel Friedman, but this one by Lori Laitman, for solo soprano and clarinet, is perhaps the least ingratiating, owing to its sparse texture and unengaging melodies. Charles Davidson and Joel Hardyk accomplish far more interesting, repeat-worthy results with their choral realizations, available on several recordings.
The commercial point of this production, which involves two of today’s biggest names in theatre and children’s literature–Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak–is obvious. And if the connection with these celebrities increases public awareness of Brundibar and the many nearly forgotten composers and musical performers of the Terezin ghetto, so much the better. I just wish that Kushner and those in charge of the recording had honored the legacy of the work and the clear intent of its composer and librettist more fully. [3/29/2007]
