On 23 February at 15.00 at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre there will be a premiere of Hans Krása's children's opera Brundibár mounted by Mstislav Pentkovsky (semi-staged version). The performance will feature the Children's Chorus of St Petersburg TV and Radio, the Raduga Children's Music Theatre, the chorus of the Children's Studio of the Mariinsky Theatre, members of which were chosen according to the results of a competition for young singers, and the Mariinsky Orchestra under Ivan Stolbov.
Stage Director Mstislav Pentkovsky says of the production: "I am certain that the opera Brundibár today exists in several dimensions. On the one hand, there is the wonderful music and it is a children's tale about the victory of good over evil – that is how it was written by Hans Krása in 1938. On the other hand, it is a tale set within a concentration camp – such was its fate in 1943, when the opera took on a double meaning, and the victory over the evil organ-grinder Brundibár served as a ray of hope for the freedom of the prisoners. Today this opera relates, in accessible formats for audiences of children and young people, one episode in the history of war, while adults will naturally find it interesting as a phenomenal cultural sensation from the times of the Second World War."
The premiere of Hans Krása's children's opera Brundibár to a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister took place in 1942 in Prague at the Hagibor Jewish children's shelter. By that time the composer was already in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Later almost all of the children of the first cast of the chorus and the staff of the shelter ended up there. Relying on a surviving fragment of the piano score, Hans Krása recreated the full orchestral score from memory, using instruments available in the camp – the flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, piano, percussion, four violins, cello and double-bass. In 1943 Brundibár was performed for the first time in Theresienstadt and was performed a further fifty-five times there in the course of the following year.
To date, the opera Brundibár has been translated into several languages and is frequently performed in European countries, as well as in Israel, the USA and Australia. In Russian it was first presented in the spring of 2015 at the Moscow Philharmonic, seventy years after the Allies' victory in World War II.
The II International Choral Festival Maslenitsa in Song runs from 20 to 26 February at the Concert Hall and the Mariinsky II and its chamber halls. The festival programme will feature performances by ensembles from Russia, Slovenia, Norway, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and France.
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