Brundibár
was written in 1938 and had its first performance some years later
in a Prague orphanage. Its composition may have preceded the War
but by the time of that première, in the winter of 1942-43,
both the composer and the first choice conductor had been sent
to Terezin. The first performance there was for bigger forces
– the orphanage had been for boys only – so a mixed
cast and a little orchestra (rather than violin, piano and drums)
was available for the first time and the original conductor, Rafael
Schaechter, resumed command. The opera invariably grew to assume
a great weight of significance, so much so that the librettist,
Emil Saudek, changed a couple of lines of his text at the end
to reinforce the struggle to defend justice and to triumph. It
ran to fifty-five performances and was the most often performed
work in Terezin.
This Vermont recording has a small band of three
violins, viola, cello, bass, flute, clarinet, trumpet, guitar
(and banjo), keyboard and percussion. None of the singers are
professional and the cast of children copes well with the idiomatic
(translated into American English) text bringing a singular honesty
to it. Krása, a composition student of Zemlinsky in Prague,
wrote a score that fused Martinu’s motoric self-confidence
with Weill’s smoky cabaret wit and laced it all with Francophile
wind writing - cool and clear. The lyricism is simplified but
not simple minded, even if this is specifically an opera for children,
and rises to moments of unselfconscious elevation – such
as for example the relatively long finale (Scene VIII) that ends
Act I where a brass chorale courses through the final moments.
Fusing with these moments are the poignancy of utilising Czech
lullabies or folk songs – Every bird must one day spread
his wings – and some real (or imagined) cross references
in the writing to things like Verklärte Nacht.
The remainder of the programme is devoted to
the Hebrew and Yiddish folk songs arranged in the main by Victor
Ullmann – one was arranged by Gideon Klein and another by
Siegmund Schul. There’s a slightly cosmopolitan air to them,
at least as they’re presented in these performances, with
the most explicitly Jewish being Sha Shtil. Anu Olim is the most
difficult and sounds rather unidiomatic here.
Brundibár sung in English certainly has
the force of immediacy and immediately explicable meaning. But
one should first secure a Czech recording – possibly the
Channel Classics disc under Joza Karas with an all-Czech cast.
The coupling there is the Czech Songs of Domazlický. Whichever
you decide on you won’t get more than 46 minutes of music
– but then I suppose Brundibár is something of a
special case.
Jonathan Woolf
.
Essex Children’s Choir