PS
99 Students Perform Opera To Commemorate Yom Hashoah
To
commemorate Yom Hashoah fifth graders from PS 99 in Queens, trained
by Inside Broadway. will perform the opera Brundibar at
the John Cranford Adams Playhouse at Hofstra University on April
9, 2002 at 7:00 pm.
The opera was originally presented in the Nazi Terezin concentration
camp, called Theresienstadt by the Germans, about 40 miles north
from Prague. The story is a parable of a needy family whose children
raise some money, only to have it snatched away by an evil organ
grinder named Brundibar. With help from some animals, the children
recover the money, and everyone lives happily ever after. The
composer, a Czech named Hans Krasa, did at Auschwitz, along with
legions of other gifted musicians who were Jewish.
Krasa’s 45-minute opera, which had 55 performances at Terezin,
lives on. Eventually, and by the tens of thousands, the temporary
residents of Terezin were shipped to Auschwicz where they were
gassed. Of 144,000 Jews interned at Terezin, 33,000 perished in
the camp, while 88,000 at Auschwitz. Of 15,000 resident children
at Theresienstadt, only 100 survived.#
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