MUSIC REVIEW : Children’s Ode From Death Camp Inaugurates Center for Arts

A lone woman stands on stage. The setting is the abandoned Theresienstadt, a concentration camp where artists and children were detained before being sent to their deaths at Auschwitz. She (Nehama Shutan) speaks poignantly to the empty air and the memories that haunt her.

But what follows this prologue to “Brundibar,” a children’s skit with music, serving as the inaugural event Thursday night of the Jewish Center for the Performing Arts at Temple Israel in Hollywood, has more meaning as a gesture than as a historical document or as the anti-fascist parable it was intended to be.

Czech composer Hans Krasa, who wrote his melodic and deceptively whimsical score for a Prague competition that was preempted by the Nazi invasion, witnessed its production by the children of Theresienstadt. While SS officers found the piece amusing and attended performances night after night, they never recognized Hitler in the Charlie Chaplinesque characterization of the villain. On stage, at least, the children vanquished the evil organ grinder, Brundibar.

Except for Shutan and Mark Kaplan, who portrayed the title character, the cast was made up of a chorus of teens and pre-teens--performing mostly at a non-professional, school level.

A collage of barbed wire and trash cans composed Bela Arguetty’s imaginative decor. But this Americanized, post-Holocaust staging looked and sounded more like a cross between “Annie” and “Cats” than anything else. Conductor Uri Ophir and a four-member instrumental ensemble held to a high standard, however.

As a prelude, pianist Neal Brostoff and violinist Mark Kashper played the second movement of Eric Zeisl’s “Brandeis” Sonata and Joseph Achron’s Hebrew Melody--delicately mournful music given sensitive readings. Susan Merson gave insightful recitations of the poems, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” written by the children of Theresienstadt.