Musica non grata: Music by Terezín Composers

The concert Music by Terezín Composers from a cycle Musica non grata is also a first concert in cooperation with the music festival Eternal Hope (Věčná naděje).

The concert opens with a composition by Pavel Haas composed in Terezín. He wrote the Study for string orchestra a year before his death. A work comparable to the greatest compositions of the 20th century was created in the uncertainty of tomorrow. The State Opera Orchestra will also perform Haas' Suite for Oboe and String Orchestra, transcribed by Ondřej Kyas and performed by the soloist Vilém Veverka. Antonín Dvořák's Serenade for Strings (1st and 2nd movements) will pay tribute to the Czech conductor Karel Ančerl. The first part of the concert closes with the last completed piece Partia for string orchestra by Gideon Klein, one of those extraordinary talents who fell victim to the so-called "final solution", and with the piece Songs My Mother Taught Me by Antonín Dvořák. The concert is accompanied by a reading of Arnošt Lustig's texts performed by Vilma Cibulková and Tomáš Töpfer. The texts adapted and directed by Eva Lustigova. 

The second part of the concert is dedicated to the opera The Emperor of Atlantis (Des Kaisers Abschied) by Viktor Ullmann. The opera was written in the Terezín camp, but unlike other works it could not be performed in Terezín. The parable of the dictator was too obvious. The fate of the composer and the fate of the librettist Peter Kien ends with their death in Auschwitz. A selection of the opera's arias will be sung by Opera soloists and Opera guests. Conductor Olga Machoňová Pavlů, who also participated in the composition of the programme, has accepted the invitation to take the conductor's chair. 

The presenter of the evening will be Martina Kociánová.

Programme:
Pavel Haas: Study for string orchestra

Pavel Haas: Suite for oboe and string orchestra (Suite for oboe and piano, Op. 17, orchestrated by Ondřej Kyas)

—  intermission — 

Gideon Klein: Partita for string orchestra (Trio for violin, viola and cello, arranged for string orchestra by Vojtěch Saudek)

Readings from the text of Arnošt Lustig: The White Big Journey

Antonín Dvořák: Songs My Mother Taught Me

Viktor Ullmann: Der Kaiser von Atlantis

Hommage to Karel Berman
Aria of Death „Das waren Kriege“
Aria of Trommler „Hallo, hallo“
Aria of Bubikopf „Ist’s wahr, dass es Landschaften gibt“
Aria of Ceasar „Der Kriegt ist aus“
Finale „Komm, Tod, du unser werter Gast"