By Chris Shull 

          On May 27, a monument was unveiled in Berlin honoring the thousands of homosexuals who were persecuted by the Nazis before and during World War II. The Naxos label has just released a live recording of Jake Heggie's For a Look or a Touch, a half-hour musical drama commemorating two of those victims.
 
          For a Look or a Touch stars baritone Morgan Smith as Manfred Lewin, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942, and actor Julian Patrick as Gad Beck, a gay survivor of the Holocaust. Combining song, monologues and music by a quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano), the piece's seven sections paint pictures of young love, casual heroism, hellish imprisonment and years of repression. The libretto by Gene Scheer draws from Lewin's journal and from interviews with Holocaust survivors.  

          Composer Heggie will get a lot of exposure in the Metroplex in the next two years. He's best known for his hit opera Dead Man Walking, which will be produced by Fort Worth Opera next May. Heggie will participate in a recital of his works April 25, 2009, in Fort Worth as part of the Cliburn at the Modern concert series. And Heggie and Scheer also will collaborate on the opera Moby-Dick, to get its world premiere by the Dallas Opera in the new Winspear Opera House in April 2010.  

          For a Look or a Touch is unabashedly theatrical. (The title refers to the regulation that allowed police to arrest gays "for a look or a touch.") Its sentimentality is shot through with lyrical depictions of brutality and terror.  
          A dance-hall swing recalls the happy energy of Berlin before the persecutions began. The Story of Joe tells of a quiet boy savaged by guard dogs; The Singing Forest recalls a horrific torture, with the gentleness of Heggie's melody contrasting the brutality of the scene.  

          There's an educational element about For a Look or a Touch, which was commissioned and performed last year by the Seattle-based ensemble Music of Remembrance. (This recording also includes world-premiere recordings of a cello piece by Gerald Schwarz and a song cycle, The Seed of Dream, by Lori Laitman.) Like the monument recently unveiled in Berlin, Heggie's message is simple and vital -- a musical motif at the beginning and end implores listeners to Remember.

Jake Heggie: For a Look or a Touch 
With Morgan Smith, baritone; Julian Patrick, actor 
*** out of 5 stars  
Naxos