Victoria Theatre production of Terezin children's opera to reach hundreds of area students

By Michelle Tedford, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

While the Dayton production of the children’s opera Brundibár marks a milestone in local Holocaust education, no performance of the opera has held more weight than the June 1944 show in German-occupied Terezin, Czechoslovakia.

“We knew this was not a regular performance,” says Ela Weissberger, 77, who played The Cat in the original production. She describes how the Nazis transformed the typhus-plagued ghetto in an effort to dupe the Red Cross.

The Terezin production of Brundibar

The special delegation from Berlin watched from the balcony — “They didn’t want to get too close because we would get them sick” —  as children performed the fairy tale of a brother and sister who, with enchanted animals, defeat the evil, moustached organ grinder, Brundibár.

“We knew we were performing for our life,” she says in a phone interview from her home in Tappan, N.Y.

The ruse worked. The Red Cross took photos of smiling children and reported no evidence of the genocide about which the world was whispering.

This month, 1,200 school children will attend Brundibár at the Victoria Theatre, one of the last legacies of the children of Terezin. They will also hear stories from Weissberger in a continuation of a nearly yearlong Holocaust education project, Through the Eyes of a Child, with the goal of ensuring such a genocide never happens again.

Places, please
During the first week of full-cast rehearsal, 30 local actors are marking their places on the carpeted floor of Temple Israel’s multipurpose room.

“You come in six at a time,” says director Luke Dennis to the roomful of children over bursts of conversation. “This is the first set of characters — Baker, Milkman, Ice Cream Man — as well as anyone who’s number one. You know who’s a number one? Good. You’ll have this much time to make an entrance,” he adds as he cues the keyboardist, who plays the song’s opening notes.

By the end of the two-hour rehearsal, they have experienced one theme of the play. “When the three of you work together,” Dennis says to the animal character actors, “you are not afraid anymore.”

Dennis, education and outreach manager for the Victoria Theatre Association, says the play is about how the beauty of art — in this case, a children’s lullaby — can defeat bullies and create a better world.

Staging a scene for Victoria Theatre's Brundibar

It’s a strong message for a children’s opera first performed during the Holocaust. The story follows siblings who need milk for their sick mother. They sing for money, only to be terrorized by the organ grinder, Brundibár. With the help of a dog, cat and sparrow, the children of the town win over the adults and defeat Brundibár.

The story and complex score of the musical fairy tale intrigued Charity Farrell, 17, who plays the sister, Aninku. So did the play’s history.

To her, the most important part of the production is “being part of the education of the kids who come to see it, making an impact.”

Additionally, family members and theatregoers can attend public performances of Brundibár at 2 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 9 at  the Victoria Theatre. Weissberger will speak at all performances.

Forty-eight children ages 12-18, including a live orchestra from the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, are in this Dayton Opera production. The principles and chorus members come from the Kettering Children’s Choir, Muse Machine and other area arts organizations. They will have rehearsed at least two hours a day for 35 days before the first show.

It is a multiracial, multiethnic, multidenominational group. Such diversity is important to the play’s theme of tolerance, Dennis says. It is also important for making a connection with the audience.

“You can’t hope to excite and engage diverse audiences without showing them a world that’s familiar to them,” he says.

Power of art
Terezin has been called a Juilliard of the Holocaust. Despite hunger, disease and deplorable living conditions, the arts continued to thrive. Children practiced on battered instruments and rehearsed for plays. They drew pictures and wrote poems.

When composer Hans Krása arrived in 1942 in Terezin — the ghetto the Nazis called Theresienstadt — he brought with him Brundibár. For the Sept. 23, 1943, premiere in Magdeburg barrack, Weissberger wore her sister’s black ski pants, her mother’s sweater and black shoe polish for cat’s whiskers.

“Music really took us out of the horrible days of our time,” she says. “You really — when you are on stage and you’re very young — you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m performing.’ You forget everything. You forget the hunger.”

Weissberger performed the role 55 times, including for the Red Cross visit and the Nazi propaganda film Hitler Gives the Jews a Town.

While the play was about standing up to an evil man with a moustache, she said either the Nazis didn’t pay attention to the play’s messages or figured they’d let the Jews have some fun before they died.

It didn’t last long. By fall 1944, disease, hunger and transports to Auschwitz had decimated Terezin’s population. Of the 15,000 children who arrived in Terezin over nearly four years, about 100 survived, says Weissberger, who is today one of two original living cast members.

Since then, the opera has been performed around the world. The Dayton production will follow the 2003 Tony Kushner adaptation, which has strengthened the opera’s revival with a companion book illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Weissberger participates in Brundibár productions worldwide. In February, she visited Pamplona, Spain, where she and the cast sang the final victory song with 150 children streaming in from the wings.

The song goes, “We’ve won a victory/Since we were not fearful/Since we were not tearful/Because we marched along/Singing our happy song/Bright, joyful and cheerful.”
“It gives something to those watching it, that the victory song meant to us, we will overcome Brundibár, who is Hitler, and that we will have victory,” she says.

Brundibár’s lessons
Miami Valley students attending the March 10 and 11 school performances have learned about the Holocaust through speakers, education modules and art experiences, giving them a context for the opera and Weissberger’s talk.

The project has three goals, starting with a lesson students can take back to the classrooms.

“Bullying is a big issue in schools still, and bullying is a big issue in Brundibár,” Dennis says. “They defeat Brundibár by banding together.”

The second lesson is seeing the Holocaust not only as history but also as a warning against current political conflicts, including wars in Rwanda and Bosnia.

“I want them to see that this (issue) is not just long ago and far away,” he says. To illustrate, Dennis included information in the teacher’s resource guide on contacting politicians about the genocide in Darfur.

Finally, there is the power of the arts. He can see it in the eyes of his students when he gives them background and context for the scenes they act out. He also hears it in the voice of Weissberger as she shares stories of Terezin.

“I want them to be amazed, astounded and inspired by the role creativity played in these camps,” Dennis says. “I want them to see that they can have that too, that it can change their whole life.”