MOR Scores Big With "Brundibár"

By Milton Hamlin

Jun 12, 2006

SEATTLE, WA - June 12, 2006 -The pre-performance buzz on MOR's production of "Brundibár", (The Bumblebee) was strong, but few anticipated that the Music Of Remembrance (MOR) concerts this past Monday and Tuesday nights would so successful, so emotional, so, well, incredible.

The children's opera, an allegory about the triumph of "good over evil" in Nazi Germany, opened productions in New York and Seattle on the same night. Seattle's MOR will record the score for an upcoming release on Naxos records, a major coup for the Emerald City group that was formed eight years ago to honor those who suffered, perished or survived the holocaust and "ensure that the voices of musical witness be heard."

All of MOR's concerts are musically assured and emotionally vibrant-and this pairing of Hans Krasa's "Brundibár" and short instrumental works ranks as one of the most successful in MOR's history. The short, fable-like opera started slowly with some rough spots from the Northwest Boychoir but those projection problems soon disappeared as the full cast took over the performance.

While slight opera (not really for children-at least not with an evening performance time) was charming and clear in its message. While good triumphs over evil by the end of the 30-minute work, a chilling coda finds the Hitler-like evil organ grinder delivering a prophesy from the back of the theater that he-and his evil ways-will return. Alas, they did.

An emotional highlight of the evening was the on-stage "remarks" from Ela Stein Weissberger, the young Jewish girl who played the Cat in the show's 55 performances at Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Officials estimate that Terezin housed up to 15,000 children during its existence. Only 100-including Weissberger-were alive when the camp was liberated at the end of World War II. Her "I Was There" commentary was a highlight of the evening.

MOR drew a superb group of talented Northwest musicians for the concert. Gerard Schwarz, music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra for the past 21 years, joined MOR to conduct the performances-and the upcoming recording. Erich Parce directed the cast. The production used the new English language translation and adaptation by Tony Kushner, the openly Gay Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Gay-themed Angels In America and other major plays.

For complete details about MOR and its upcoming ninth season, call 365-7770 and ask to be added to the mailing list. The group has always honored all who perished in the Holocaust, including the many Gay men who suffered under the Nazi regime.