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OPERA REVIEW
November 19, 2005
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By Janos Gereben
According to some (probably misguided) sources, Verdi wrote Aida for the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, although it was not performed in Cairo until 1871. Do you need these facts (or allegations) when you listen to the opera? Not really. In fact, it makes not a whit of difference in the appreciation of the work. The opera is the thing, the historical context is ephemeral, inconsequential.
How different this relationship is in the case of the Berkeley Rep's production of Hans Krása's Brundibar! The history of the opera is overwhelming, all-important. It was performed by and for children in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia's Terez“n ghetto (called "Theresienstadt" in German), eventually a terminal gateway to Auschwitz, where composer, young performers, and audiences soon perished during the Holocaust. (For more information, see www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) And yet, the work and the production must be seen — and reviewed — on their own merit, apart from those horrendous antecedents.
Krása was born in Prague, a member of the city's German-Jewish community, but his education and career centered mostly in Berlin, where he became a student and protégé of Alexander Zemlinsky. Recognized early on as a conductor, Krása was offered positions in Berlin, Paris, and Chicago. An eminently talented composer, he created a fine body of neo-romantic works, a career cut short in Auschwitz, at age 45.
He originally wrote Brundibar (Bumblebee) in a version for violin, piano, and percussion, for performance in a Jewish orphanage (Hagibor) in Prague. When the entire orphanage was moved to Terez“n, where Krása was imprisoned, he used a smuggled piano score to expand the work for a chamber ensemble.
It is ironic that today he is best known for Brundibar, because the work's "minimalistic" simplicity doesn't represent Krása at his best, which can be found in some of his orchestral works, the 1936 Theme and Variations for String Quartet, and the 1943 Passacaglia and Fugue for String Trio, written while he was captive in Terez“n. Musically, Brundibar is a charming, simple, melodic, folksong-like suite of brief scenes. Would it have survived without its history? Probably not.
 Aaron Simon Gross (Pepicek) Valery Gebert conducts the 13-piece pit orchestra as two extraordinarily mature and professional youngsters, sixth-grader Aaron Simon Gross and third-grader Devynn Pedell, sing the lead roles of Pepicek and Aninku, who are trying to get some milk and bread for their sick mother. When they see Brundibar (Euan Morton, on stilts), a bizarre organ-grinder, they ask him for help, but he refuses, and then even prevents the duo from singing on the street to get the money. The village, led by its children, stands up to Brundibar, and they sing a triumphant chorus of joy. It is at this moment, especially in the superbly cohesive performance by the children, that Krása's "little opera" hits a true musical high note.
Production design is by Maurice Sendak, executed by Kris Stone, Tony Taccone is the stage director. The English adaptation is by Tony Kushner. To get an idea of what it might have been like to work with the often Brundibar-like Sendak, see Mirra Bank's memorable documentary, The Last Dance. It is about Sendak's tempestuous collaboration with Pilobolus to produce A Selection, a dance piece built on Brundibar.
The same production team is responsible for the other work on the Berkeley Rep's double-bill, Bohuslav Martinu's Comedy on the Bridge. Its story is even simpler than Krása's, if that's possible: a group of people getting stuck on a bridge between two warring countries. The music is similarly atypical: it has little to do with the symphonic magnificence of Martinu's large-scale works; it's more like a mini-operetta, in scale and nature. Bridge features mostly singers (the Rep's Geoff Hoyle has non-singing roles in both works), including Anjali Bhimani (the Sparrow in Brundibar), Martin Vidnovic, Matt Farnsworth. Angelina Réaux (also the outstanding Cat in the other work), and others. Morton gets off his stilts and star billing to play one of the two border guards. The show is a co-production of the Yale Repertory Theater, transferring to New Haven in February, then to New York's New Victory Theater in April. (Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com)
Brundibar and The Comedy on the Bridge run through
December 28 at the Berkeley
Repertory Theatre.
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