Brundibàr

Academic and musician Joseph Toltz has spent over 17 years researching music’s place in the memory of Holocaust survivors. It was during this work he discovered the children’s opera Brundibár, performed 55 times by the prisoners, for the prisoners, at Terezín Ghetto concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Brundibár’s simple fable of children coming together to overcome a town bully became a powerful symbol of hope and resistance for many in the camp.

“It being an allegory, you could make of it what you wanted. A lot of people interpreted Brundibár as being representative of the oppressors, of the Nazis, of Hitler,” says Toltz.

In collaboration with Opera Prometheus and the Sydney Jewish Museum, Toltz will be presenting the first ever performance of Brundibár in Sydney.

With many Holocaust survivors living here, Toltz believes it is more important than ever to stage Brundibár.

“We have survivors here who can talk about their time and what it meant to them,” he says. “It will come to a point where there aren’t any survivors around.”

Most of all Toltz hopes that through Brundibár audiences will reflect on what music means to them.

“When you’re deprived of all sorts of other things, how much more powerful will that musical meaning be in your life?” (MT)

August 14, City Recital Hall, 2-12 Angel Place, Sydney, $25-60, (02) 8256 2222, cityrecitalhall.com

BY MELODY TEH

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