The historic children's opera 'Brundibár' is published in Hebrew – and will be distributed for free to children in Israel
The legendary children's opera 'Brundibár', first performed in the Terezín Ghetto over 80 years ago, is being published as an illustrated children's book in Hebrew titled 'Brundibár: Victory of the Children!'. The book will be distributed for free to children in Israel, initiated by opera director Mstislav Pentkovsky with assistance from the German Foreign Office. Author Hanelora Brenner describes a 30-year circle closing.
The historic children's opera 'Brundibár', first performed in the Terezín Ghetto over 80 years ago, is being published as an illustrated children's book in Hebrew under the title 'Brundibár: Victory of the Children!'. The book will be distributed for free to children in Israel. The project was born from the initiative of opera director Mstislav Pentkovsky, who has staged the opera in Russia and Estonia since 2015, with assistance from the German Foreign Office. Author Hanelora Brenner describes a circle closing that began three decades ago, when she met Holocaust survivors who remembered the opera performances in the ghetto. The opera, performed 55 times by imprisoned Jewish children, was seen as a symbol of heroism and spiritual resistance, with the character Brundibár embodying the tyranny and evil of Hitler. Camp survivor Helga Pollak-Kinsky recalled: 'Brundibár spread like a spark. The songs had deep meaning for us: the victory of good over evil'.