Classical and Jazz: Preview - Nash Ensemble Weekend: Theresienstadt 1941-45, June 19-20
Published: 20 May 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
LIFE in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Second World War is to be remembered in a remarkable weekend programme of concerts, talks, films music and children’s art exhibition at the Wigmore Hall next month.
The programme has been devised by Amelia Freedman, artistic director of the Nash Ensemble which ranks as one of the world’s finest chamber music groups.
“The name Theresienstadt – or Terezín to give it is Czech name – has become synonymous with the greatest propaganda lie in the Nazi’s reign of terror,” says Ms Freedman.
“Virtually the whole of the Jewish cultural elite was forced to live in the concentration camp located 60km from Prague. The Nazis used the camp as a showcase, allowing inmates to stage a whole range of entertainments, including plays, concerts, operas, cabaret and café concerts, for the entertainment of visitors who even included the International Red Cross.”
In reality the prisoners were being starved which, combined with hard labour, meant a daily struggle for survival.
“There could be no greater contrast between this and the extraordinarily varied and creative work produced by the camp inmates,” she says. “Ultimately, the Wigmore Hall weekend celebrates the triumph of human spirit over adversity and intolerance.”
The Nash Ensemble weekend will focus on works by a dozen composers whose exceptional talents were so cruelly cut short.
One event will be concerned with the children’s opera Bundibár composed by Hans Krása presented for the International Red Cross on September 23, 1943.
A talk about the camp and the opera will be given Greta Hofmeister-Klingsberg who sang the part of Aninka in the 1943 performance and a film will include a short excerpt of the original performance as well.
A suite based on the children’s opera is to be played as part of an evening concert.
• Nash Ensemble Weekend: Theresienstadt 1941-45, June 19-20 at the Wigmore Hall, Wigmore Street, WC1, 020 7935 2141, www. wigmore-hall.org.uk From £12; Weekend ticket £50 inc. top price ticket to each concert