Brundibár
Rehearsals started in 1941 at the Jewish orphanage in Prague, which served 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 for a limited audience of 150 people: by this time, composer Krása and set designer František Zelenka had already been transported to Theresienstadt.
Reunited with the cast in Theresienstadt, Krása 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.
The Brundibár footage from the film is included in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Voices of the Children directed by Zuzana Justman, a Terezin survivor, who sang in the chorus.
There Weissberger describes the opera in some detail, noting that the only time that the children were permitted to remove their yellow stars was during a performance.
However, with the help of a fearless sparrow, keen cat, and wise dog, and the children of the town, they are able to chase Brundibár away, and sing in the market square.
The opera contains obvious symbolism in the triumph of the helpless and needy children over the tyrannical organ grinder, but has no overt references to the conditions under which it was written and performed.
Though Hoffmeister wrote the libretto before Hitler's invasion, at least one line was changed by poet Emil Saudek at Terezin, to emphasize the anti-Nazi message.
In the American miniseries War and Remembrance, in episode 10, an excerpt from the opera Brundibar can be seen being staged on the day of the visit by Red Cross representatives.
This was staged at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in a double bill with another Terezin opera, The Emperor of Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann.
The opera then moved to the New Victory Theater for its Off-Broadway New York premiere, and Comedy on the Bridge was replaced with a new Kushner play, But the Giraffe.
In 2006, Brundibár and Comedy on the Bridge were staged by the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT.[5] The opera has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years, and has been performed in different versions in England, Czech Republic, Israel, Australia and across the United States.
In 1995 in Germany and in Austria the opera was performed as a part of a school and memory project in cooperation with survivors from Terezín, such as Herbert Thomas Mandl or Eva Hermannová.
The remaining characters, including Brundibár himself (William Wollen), were played by actors on stilts, creating a nightmarish world for the children.
[10] In October 2000, Cincinnati Opera presented Brundibár at the Aronoff Center, with John Morris Russell conducting and stage direction by Brian Robertson.
[14][15] In November 2004, Brundibar was performed by OzOpera, the touring arm of Opera Australia, as part of the Gandel Festival of Jewish Music.
The production featured a reproduction of artwork by the child survivor Kitty Passerová Levy, with consultation from Theresienstadt survivors living in Australia, including Jaroslav (Jerry) Rind, who helped with the original construction of the set in Theresienstadt, as well as Edith Druckerová Sheldon and Joe Neustatl, both of whom had seen the production in the ghetto.
