Doors open: 4:00 p.m. (CET) | Begin: 5:00 p.m. (CET) | End: 9:00 p.m. (CET)

Join us for the second event in our transatlantic concert and conversation series Opera & Democracy, which is simultaneously the kick-off event for the series in Germany. Various events in the U.S. and Germany will explore the relationship between opera and democracy and how the opera can contribute to diverse and inclusive societies.

The event commemorates three artists who were forcibly silenced. The composer, répétiteur and conductor Viktor Ullmann was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942 and murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on October 18, 1944. Gideon Klein, composer and pianist, was also taken to Theresienstadt in 1941; he was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Both composers created a great deal of music in Theresienstadt, including an opera. The Czechoslovakian German-language writer Ilse Weber was taken to Auschwitz after her internment in Theresienstadt. Before the outbreak of war, she was a successful artist and had been published several times. In the camp, Weber worked as a nurse in the children's hospital, read and sang for the little ones and tried to give them hope with her texts. Her texts and songs were presumably widely distributed in the camp, smuggled out of the ghetto and subsequently written down from memory by survivors. Some were probably accompanied on the guitar by Weber herself. Ilse Weber was killed in the gas chamber in 1944 along with her son and other children she was caring for.

In two discussions, the biographies and circumstances in Theresienstadt will be examined in more detail based on the sounds of the works. They will also discuss what we can do as a society in the 21st century to make silenced voices audible, where the democratic potential of music and opera can be found, and what contribution they can make to a diverse and inclusive society. Christopher Warmuth.

Program

Participants

Moderation:    Andrea Thilo

Speakers:        Lydia Grün, Vladimir Jurowski, Tomáš Kraus, Kai Hinrich Müller

Violine:            Susanne Gargerle

Viola:               Tilo Widenmeyer

Violincello:     Allan Bergius

Alt:                   Noa Beinart

Recitation:     Robert Dölle

Piano:              Vladimir Jurowski

Tickets:

Regular Entry: 20 €
Discount: 10 €

Location:

Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste
Max-Joseph-Platz 3, 80539 München

More information:

Read more about the event here.

An event of the Bayerische Staatsoper in cooperation with the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and in collaboration with the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste.