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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