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Duet of Remembrance
New West Symphony remembers the Holocaust through its two-part concert series
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Please check this proof over carefully and indicate all corrections clearly. You will have a “1st Proof”, “2nd Proof”, and “ we receive no proof after the 1st or 2nd Proofs, AD WILL RUN AS IS. If this proof meets your approval on the 1st p The Los Robles Children’s Choir will perform Brundibár during New West Symphony’s Dreams(APPROVED)” concert. “FINAL PROOF box, date and sign at the bottom.
by Emily Dodi
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ew West Symphony (NWS) presents Duet of Remembrance, a two-concert package dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concent-ration camps. “Everyone is part of the continuation of the story. It’s really important,” says Music Director Michael Christie. “It’s amazing, the number of direct survivors and family of survivors who live in Ventura. The history of people’s experiences just within our own community is so moving. We are hoping we can pay some small homage to the experiences that ripple through the generations.” The first concert, entitled Dreams, takes place at the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Bank of America Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 29, and at Rancho Campana Performing Arts Center in Camarillo on Sunday, Mar. 1. The program includes the children’s opera Brundibár, performed by Los Robles Children’s Choir, and Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring the California Lutheran University Choir, Women’s Chorale and Areté Vocal Ensemble, with actors Brett Elliott and Jane Longenecker of the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company. The children’s opera Brundibár, written by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása, with an original libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, tells the story of the children of a small village who rise up against a treacherous bully. The simplicity of the story, and the triumph over adversity it celebrates, belies the opera’s dark and complicated history. Brundibár was originally written in 1938 for a government competition. The competition would ultimately be canceled, but the opera went on to be performed in 1942 by children at the Jewish Orphanage on Belgicka Street in Prague. By 1943, Krása and nearly all of the children from the orphanage (along with many others) were imprisoned at Theresienstadt concentration camp in Terezín. A score of Brundibár was smuggled in, and Krása adapted it for the instruments available there. The opera debuted in September of that year, performed by the children of the camp and directed by František Zelenka, formerly a stage manager at the Czech National Theatre. It would go on to be performed numerous times, including for Red Cross representatives who visited the camp in 1944, and for a Nazi propaganda film. The filmed production would be the last at the camp: Shortly after filming, all participants were sent to Auschwitz; nearly all were gassed upon arrival. NWS Directors Dana Rouse and Alicia Langness took care in helping the young choir members understand the context and importance of the opera. “You can’t let evil go
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show for the whole family!
Dreams will be performed on Saturday, Feb. 29, at 7:30 p.m. at Fred Kavli Theatre at the Bank of American Performing Arts Center, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; and on Sunday, March 1, at 3 p.m. at Rancho Campaña Performing Arts Center, 4235 Mar Vista Drive, Camarillo. Violins of Hope will be performed April 18-19. For tickets and more information, call 805-497-5800 or visit newwestsymphony.org.
FRI
MAR 6 7PM
family!
SAT
MAR 7
2PM & 7PM
800.745.3000
ticketmaster.com February 27, 2020 —
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