Image from Brundibar © Maurice Sendak 2003

A GRAND AND INTIMATE JOURNEY MUSIC WITH A POINT: TONY KUSHNER ON TWO WORKS OF ART THAT DARED TO HOPE IN A TIME OF WAR HUMOR IN THE FACE OF INHUMANITY NO LIGHT WITHOUT THE DARK: THE INCOMPARABLE MIND OF MAURICE SENDAK A TRAGIC LULLABY SUGGESTED READING ON COMEDY ON THE BRIDGE / BRUNDIBAR A GRAND AND INTIMATE JOURNEY Like so many other people, I first discovered Maurice Sendak through my children. Their love for his books merged happily with my own joy in discovering his singular imagination. The worlds he described were filled not only with an endless array of fantastical creatures and brilliant landscapes, but with a mischievous sense of humor and a deep sense of empathy for children trying to survive a truly scary world. The laughter and happiness in these books never seemed entirely removed from the cares of life, but motivated—usually—by loss, by the need to find some way to triumph over suffering and sorrow. Partnering with Tony Kushner (he of his own fantastical creatures and brilliant landscapes), Sendak recently illustrated the tale of Brundibar, an allegory rooted in the rise of fascism in Czechoslavakia before World War II. Not satisfied with publishing a wonderful book, the two subsequently turned their enormous talents to designing and adapting the famous children’s opera by Hans Krása. Offered a production at the Chicago Opera Theater, they decided to pair Brundibar with Comedy on the Bridge, another one-act of the same period by Bohuslav Martinu. Taken together, the pieces form a picture of modern culture which is both terrifying and splendid: communities struggling against the mighty forces of war, despair and powerlessness with endless vigor and ingenuity. While Comedy is more focused on an adult experience and Brundibar on children, both seek solace from oppression through compassion, humor, solidarity and, ultimately, creativity. Tonight’s production attempts to realize the ambitions of both the music and the narrative: an evening designed to satisfy almost all of your aesthetic appetites. We are overjoyed to be able to present the work of two of America’s preeminent artists supported by the wealth of talent of our own artistic community. The chorus of 29 children in this show comes from virtually the entire Bay Area, while the remainder of the extraordinary and unique cast hails from every part of the country. It is, both literally and figuratively, our own little circus. Needless to say, it has taken the full measure of the skills of the staff at Berkeley Rep to produce this project. We have embarked upon this journey, together with our good colleagues at the Yale Repertory Theatre, in an attempt to create a piece of art that is both grand and intimate—and which, with regard to both content and form, raises the proverbial bar. We thank you for your continuing support as we expand the definition of what is possible. BACK TO TOP MUSIC WITH A POINT: TONY KUSHNER ON TWO WORKS OF ART THAT DARED TO HOPE IN A TIME OF WAR In 1938, the Czech Ministry of Education and Culture sponsored a competition for a children’s opera. Among those vying for the prize was a 40-year-old Prague composer, Hans Krása, whose entry, libretto by the playwright Adolf Hoffmeister, was Brundibar (the word is Czech for bumblebee). I haven’t been able to find out whether Brundibar won the competition, or whether the competition was ever concluded. A few months after the opera was completed the German army invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. Krása, who was Jewish, would have been barred from participation in such a contest, his music unperformable before a general audience according to Nazi race laws. Brundibar was not given its premiere until 1942 at the Vinohrady Jewish Boys’ Orphanage, which had become a concert and recital hall for the Jews of the Prague ghetto. Before the first performance, Krása, as well as the opera’s conductor, Rafael Schaechter, were arrested and sent in the first transport of Prague Jews to Theresienstadt, or Terezín, the Nazis’ “model ghetto” for the Jews of Central Bohemia—in reality a concentration camp and a way station for the death camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka. In spite of the arrests, Brundibar was performed at the Vinohrady Orphanage, conducted by a teenager, Rudolph Freudenfeld, son of the orphanage’s director. The piece was given three performances before the transports rounded up Freudenfeld father and son, director and designer Frantisek Zelenka, pianist Gideon Klein, who had been the accompanist, and the boys of the Vinohrady Orphanage. Rudolph Freudenfeld had hidden a copy of the piano score in his luggage, and so Brundibar arrived in Terezín, where Krása was now the inmate in charge of music for the Freizeitgestaltung (Free Time Activities Administration). Krása brilliantly reorchestrated the piano score, taking advantage of the presence in Terezín of a number of talented instrumentalists. In September 1943, the Vinohrady group, now concentration camp inmates, staged a new, co-ed production, cast with imprisoned children. The opera itself became a hit among the inmate population; Rudolph Freudenfeld conducted, Zelenka directed and designed a new set, the poet Emil Saudek wrote a new anthem for the opera’s finale, emphasizing Brundibar’s political value as allegory—in photos of the production the boy playing Brundibar is wearing something like a toothbrush moustache. Brundibar was performed 55 times at Terezín. It was begun by Jews for Jews, but before long the camp officials recognized the propaganda potential of Brundibar, with its singing prisoner children and “happy” (or at least momentarily distracted) prisoner audiences. The opera was performed for the International Red Cross committee-of-one (an inexperienced young man, utterly charmed and duped by the Nazi commandant) sent to inspect camp conditions. Segments of the performance were filmed and included in the film Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives the Jews a City), produced by the Nazis and directed by a camp inmate, the great actor and singer Kurt Gerron. The opera’s conductor and director, the poet Saudek, Kurt Gerron and nearly all the children who performed Brundibar were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Brundibar’s composer, Hans Krása, died in the gas chambers in Auschwitz in October 1944. Brundibar is a beautiful children’s story, extolling the virtues of courage and cooperation and collective action against tyranny. In a sense, it’s a tale of the outrage and rebellion of even the natural world of dogs, cats and sparrows against things as unnatural as injustice and poverty and the suffering of children. It’s a tale of the power of music to make miracles happen. It’s a story of good defeating evil. But its history is haunted by a single instance of evil defeating good. I suppose one could say that the music triumphs: today Brundibar is performed all over the world, the Jewish people have survived. On the other hand, one must always be wary of drawing false reassurances from the horrific lessons of the Holocaust, perhaps especially now, when children all over the world are in such mortal danger—poor children, children in war zones, Jewish and Palestinian children, as well as homeless, uninsured, unprotected children in the United States. I think in dark times such as these, Brundibar, both the opera and its tragic history, shouldn’t offer us a reassurance; we shouldn’t draw comfort from the fact that, even after the worst has happened, people and art survive. Some people do, many people don’t; some art survives, but of course much creative brilliance, like Hans Krása’s, is extinguished before its time. Here’s what I think Brundibar offers us, its final exhortation: Be brave, and you can make bullies behave! Rely on friends! And tyrants of all kinds, in every generation, can be and must be resisted. Comedy on the Bridge (Veselohra na moste), by the prolific Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu, was commissioned by Prague Radio in 1935, written that year in Paris and broadcast in 1937—virtually contemporaneous with Brundibar. The libretto is based on a 19th-century play by Václav Kliment Klicpera, but the story of people trapped between warring armies, exposed and vulnerable on a bridge, must have had an ominous contemporary resonance for Martinu. The world in the mid-1930s was watching fascism rise, Germany arm itself, Stalinism darken in the east and the looming Second World War, already discussed in some quarters as an inevitability. By the time Comedy had its first live, staged performance, in May 1951 in New York, Martinu had been living in the United States for 11 years. Far more fortunate than Krása, Martinu arrived in New York in 1940, a refugee driven out of Prague and then Paris by the Wehrmacht. He never lived in his homeland again. Though not nearly as tragic as Brundibar, Comedy on the Bridge is another work whose history is intertwined with war and oppression. Both are products of the middle of the 20th century, at a time when the world was sunk in nightmare. Their beauty is testament to the creative power of human beings, even in dark times, to turn ugliness into music. But it’s music with a point, or rather two simple but all-important points: fight together for justice; work, hope, pray and strive for peace. BACK TO TOP HUMOR IN THE FACE OF INHUMANITY At Bohuslav Martinu’s funeral in 1959, a friend noted, “His music is the music of our times, because it expresses profound basic problems.” This could have been said of Hans Krása’s music as well. Both of these men were modern Czech composers using their artistic talent to grapple with enormous problems. How does one confront the horror of war and tyrannical leaders? How does one retain one’s humanity in an increasingly alienating world? How does one express the complexities of the 20th century through music? Although they had different compositional styles and dissimilar personalities, one outstanding characteristic can be found in both Comedy on the Bridge and Brundibar: humor. The Czech people have long been known for their sense of humor, even in the grimmest of circumstances. Some attribute this to the fact that, in the past, Czechs lived in a relatively small, peaceful society surrounded and usually dominated by larger, more aggressive cultures. Their sense of humor helped them survive and even, at times, thrive under these conditions. In the 19th century, Czechs were part of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War I gave birth to Czechoslovakia as an independent republic in 1918, as well as its most famous and humorous fictional character: Sweik in The Good Soldier Sweik by Jaroslav Hasek. Hasek’s ironic anti-war novel, one of the first of its genre, set a standard to which other more recent works such as Catch-22 and MASH are often compared. The irreverent Sweik, who was either a very clever trickster or a bumbling fool, maneuvered his way through World War I with an ease that reminds one of his latter-day protégé: Forrest Gump. It was in this “Sweikian” comic tradition that Bohuslav Martinu, who was born in 1890 and lived through World War I, wrote Comedy on the Bridge. Though best known for his serious orchestral and chamber works, the situation in Europe was far too grim during Hitler’s rise to power for Martinu not to respond humorously. In Comedy on the Bridge, which is based on an earlier play by 19th-century Czech playwright Václav Kliment Klicpera, a kind of anti-fairy tale ensues between Popelka (“Cinderella” in Czech) and her male admirers. Trapped on a bridge between two ever-warring armies, the mundane concerns of Popelka and the others are raised to the height of absurdity by the extremity of their situation. As heads literally roll, Martinu’s libretto is punctuated with a deeply ironic musical accompaniment. Whether or not the characters in Comedy live “happily ever after” depends largely on one’s personal philosophy. Hans Krása (1899–1944) was the personification of what many considered two—or even three—distinct cultural traditions that coexisted harmoniously in Czechoslovakia’s democratic First Republic, which lasted from 1918 to 1938. His mother was German, his father was Czech and the family was Jewish. The wealthy and well-educated Krása was part of the dynamic German intellectual community in Prague at the time. Although composing came easily to him (unlike Martinu), Krása penned relatively few musical compositions. The main reason for this was that his life was tragically cut short by the Nazis in Auschwitz. However, prior to the war, he also seemed to lack creative drive. During the lively inter-war period, Krása spent most of his time discussing arts and politics with friends, playing chess and attending theatrical events and nightclubs. As the situation in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia became increasingly serious, however, Krása responded in kind. He wrote Brundibar in collaboration with librettist Adolf Hoffmeister in 1938. During the two years he spent in the Terezín concentration camp (1942–1944), Krása wrote three new compositions and revised two older pieces, bringing his total number of compositions to about a dozen, of which Brundibar is now the most famous. The humor in Brundibar is gentler and ultimately more optimistic than Martinu’s Comedy, though this children’s opera also has surprisingly dark and mysterious moments. Whereas Comedy on the Bridge represents the more cynical Sweikian comic tradition, Brundibar’s humanistic and folksy qualities hearken back to the comic tradition of Karel Càapek. Càapek, author of the sci-fi play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) and the novel War with the Newts, was deeply concerned with social justice and the fate of humanity in the face of extremism. When Brundibar was performed in Terezín, Krása changed the lyrics (with the help of poet Emil Saudek) to emphasize the importance of fairness and resistance, rather than the love of one’s parents and country. The ending became, ”He who loves justice and will abide by it, and who is not afraid, is our friend and can play with us.” Playwright Tony Kushner, one of the great social critics of our age, continues in this same tradition with his funny and exhilarating adaptation of Brundibar’s libretto. Kushner retains Krása’s message—and further stresses the merits of banding together to confront evil. As you will hear the children sing in this performance, “Our friends make us strong!” With Krása’s triumphant music, the combination is unbeatable. Tyrants beware! (by Lauren McConnell, Ph.D.) BACK TO TOP NO LIGHT WITHOUT THE DARK: THE INCOMPARABLE MIND OF MAURICE SENDAK No one does children’s stories like Maurice Sendak…over a hundred books in all. He’s won nearly every major prize for children’s literature plus the national medal of arts. And no wonder. Just look at these titles: In the Night Kitchen; Higglety Pigglety Pop; Outside Over There; Chicken Soup with Rice; and of course, the most loved and famous of all, Where the Wild Things Are. BILL MOYERS My friend Joseph Campbell once told me long before I met you that one of the great moments in literature is this scene in Where the Wild Things Are: “And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, ‘Be still!’ and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.” Joseph Campbell went and got that and read it to me. And he said, “That is a great moment because it’s only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.” And he said that was a great moment in literature. MAURICE SENDAK That’s very moving. I did not know. But you were just making it up? I was just making it up. A long time ago. I was 32 when I did that book. But if he’s right, that’s a wonderful and touching idea. But do you believe it’s true? Do we all, adults and children, have to come to grips with our own untamed passions and… Oh, yes. We’re animals. We’re violent. We’re criminal. We’re not so far away from the gorillas and the apes, those beautiful creatures. And then, we’re supposed to be civilized. We’re supposed to go to work every day. We’re supposed to be nice to our friends and send Christmas cards to our parents. We’re supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it’s so against what we naturally would want to do. And as it turns out sometimes the so-called “right way” is utterly the wrong way. What a monstrous confusion. Is writing books like this something like guerilla warfare? Yes. That’s well said. Because you’re really fighting yourself all the way along the line. And I don’t know…I never set out to write books for children. I was watching television. Christa Ludwig who was a great opera singer, had a surprising interview at the end of the concert where the guy said, “But, why do you like Schubert? You always sing Schubert.” And he sort of faintly condemned Schubert. “I mean, he’s so simple. He just does Viennese waltzes.” And she smiled. And she said, “Schubert is so big, so delicate, but what he did was pick a form that looked so humble and quiet so that he could crawl into that form and explode emotionally, find every way of expressing every emotion in this miniature form.” And I got very excited. And I wondered is it possible that’s why I do children’s books? I picked a modest form which was very modest back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I mean, children’s books were the bottom end of the totem pole. We didn’t even get invited to grown-up book parties at Harper’s. It was a woman’s world, wasn’t it? It was a woman’s world. And you were suspect the minute you were at a party. “What do you do?” “I do books with children.” “Ah, I’m sure my wife would like to talk to you.” It was always that way. But, my thought was…that’s what I did. I didn’t have much confidence in myself…never. And so, I hid inside, like Christa was saying, this modest form called the children’s book and expressed myself entirely. I wasn’t gonna paint. And I wasn’t gonna do ostentatious drawings. I wasn’t gonna have gallery pictures. I was gonna hide somewhere where nobody would find me and express myself entirely. I’m like a guerilla warfarer in my best books. You deal so often in your work with the courage of children. What does it take for a child to have courage? And what do you mean by it? Innocence. Innocence? Enormous innocence to really not know how evil the world can be. Brundibar ends saying, “The wicked never win. We have our victory. Yet, tyrants come along. But, you just wait and see. They topple one, two, three. Our friends will make us strong. And thus, we end our song.” Turn the page. It’s a P.S. from Brundibar. “They believe they’ve won the fight. They believe I’m gone. Not quite. Nothing ever works out neatly. Bullies don’t give up completely. One departs. The next appears. And we shall meet again, my dears. Though I go, I won’t go far. I’ll be back. Love, Brundibar.” What are you saying there? Well, you can’t get rid of evil. We can’t, and I feel that so intensely. There’s a powerful illustration here. The children are on the backs of blackbirds. They’re flying through the starlit sky. Why blackbirds? I don’t know for sure. Because the blackbirds are in this book, they’re both pro the kids and against the kids. Just like fate. Sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes…And also a blackbird is from my passion for Schubert songs and his blackbirds and his birds of doom or birds of good. Tony Kushner, your friend and collaborator, says you have a mind darkened by both fatalism and faith. Faith? Faith. Well, okay. You agree with him? He knows you. Yeah, he knows me almost too well. Fatalism, yes. Yes. Having lived through the wars in Europe and having lost so many people in my family when I was a child. Faith? Total faith in art. Total faith in art. Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain. I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer. (excerpted from the March 14, 2004 transcript of PBS’ NOW with Bill Moyers—click here to see the whole interview, reprinted with permission from Maurice Sendak and Public Affairs Television) BACK TO TOP A TRAGIC LULLABY Towards the end of Brundibar, the children take a stand against the big bully, and lift their voices in song with the hopes of raising enough funds from the townspeople to buy milk. Instead of a rallying, cheerful tune, their song is a bittersweet lullaby. Tony Kushner’s lyrics tell of the passing of time and the separation occurring between mother and child, sadly mirroring the harsh reality of what happened to almost every child of Terezín who gave life to Brundibar. In the basement, down below; On the roof, where breezes blow; Ev’ry kid in each apartment, Rich and poor and quick and slow; Knows when night is gath’ring nigh, Mommy sings a lullaby: Mommy sings rockabye, Baby when you are grown, You’ll sing a lullaby and I’ll be left alone. Baby blackbird, fly now; Time to go; Who knows why? Spring is gone, Summer’s in, World awaits, it’s Time to fly… Trees grow high, rivers dry, Clouds and hours billow by, Day by day, flown away… Baby, in such a rush, Grew up, grew straight and tall; Maybe you’ll feel a blush When, Mommy, you recall: Naked how you bath’d us, In the old Bassinet, Gave us milk, Whispered soft, Little pet, You’ll soon forget… Trees grow high, rivers dry, Clouds and hours billow by, Day by day, flown away… Now you are very old; Your hair is soft and grey; Mommy, the cradle’s cold. Blackbird has flown away… BACK TO TOP SUGGESTED READING ON COMEDY ON THE BRIDGE / BRUNDIBAR Terezin by Susan Goldman Rubin The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin by Susan Goldman Rubin and Ela Weissberger Brundibar by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) Little Bear by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) Higglety Pigglety Pop! by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (hardbound) Artists of Terezin by Gerald Green I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin by Hana Volavkova, Chaim Potok, Vaclav Havel The Book of Alfred Kantor by Alfred Kantor The Art of Maurice Sendak 1980 to the Present with contributions by Tony Kushner Tony Kushner in Conversation interviewed by Robert Vorlicky In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin with contributions by Cara De Silva These titles are available at the Berkeley Rep Theatre Store, located in the Roda Lobby. Books may also be purchased online from CODY'S BOOKS If you access their site from here, 20% of your purchase will be donated back to Berkeley Rep! BACK TO TOP