B Th e E La st R NIG HT. L

THE LA I ST N Caba ret.

PRESENTED WITH: VO-Barber COV TLC program half page ad FINAL.indd 1 2019-11-28 8:18 AM The Theatre of Music Alan Corbishley: Artistic Director

COMING UP: SEPT/OCT 2020 Music of the Night: The Concert Tour a continued celebration of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 70th Birthday, touring BC and Alberta. 2021 Canadian Premiere of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize Opera, Angel’s Bone: A contemporary fable that examines the dark motivations and effects of modern day slavery and human trafficking. In partnership with Generously supported by

www.soundthealarm.ca CITY OPERA VANCOUVER SOUND THE ALARM: MUSIC/THEATRE THE PUSH INTERNATIONAL PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL

PRESENT THE LAST CABARET

A new work devised by Alan Corbishley, Joanna Garfinkel, and Roger Parton

Running Time: 90:00. No intermission. Haze and lighting effects. There will be a talk-back immediately following the performances on January 23, 24 and 25, 2020.

STARRING Meaghan Chenosky • Daniel Deorksen • Alen Dominguez Brent Hirose • Julia Munčs

Alan Corbishley • Stage Director Roger Parton • Music Director, Vocal Coach and Arranger Joanna Garfinkel • Dramaturg John Webber • Set and Lighting Design Christopher David Gauthier • Costume Design Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg • Movement and Choreography Jayson McLean • Production Manager Melanie Thompson • Stage Manager Kattia Woloshyniuk • Ticket Manager Sara Bailey • Graphic and Programme Design Luthor Bonk • Programme Editor Michelle Koebke / Diamond’s Edge • Production Photography Chris Randle • Videographer Murray Paterson Marketing Group • Marketing Trudy Chalmers • General Manager Charles Barber • Artistic Director

This production is being given on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. 2 FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Charles Barber

City Opera Vancouver is a professional chamber company, now in its 14th year. Our ambition is to widen the audience for opera, and to expand the scope of its ambition. In BERLIN we are honoured and aided by two new partnerships: the renowned PuSh International Festival, and the bold and enterprising Sound The Alarm: Music Theatre company. We thank them both.

Tonight’s work began over a year ago, when Alan Corbishley first proposed it to City Opera. Aided by the extraordinary dramaturgy of Joanna Garfinkel, and the witty and informed arrangements of Roger Parton, we offer something you have never heard before. Each of these musical numbers is authentic to the Weimar era, to its spirit and transgressions. Taken together, and in combination with the new dialogue you will hear, BERLIN is re-creation of an era that began in dazzling hope – and collapsed in catastrophe. We explore why and how this happened, through the lives of five compelling characters gathered one last time in 1934. This is not a National Geographic Special. It is a work of art, but its power lies in its validity, its history, and its prescience. Sarcastic, silly, corrosive, damaged, and bittersweet lyrics echo the broken lives of the era. They foretell ours today. Each of the songs was originally written in German. We present them in standard English, drawing attention to the reality that these themes and echoes of history are not so distant from us today. City Opera is deeply grateful to the several translators, named elsewhere, who guided us in recreation of their spirit and power. Our objective in Berlin is to examine the rise of fascism through the manufacture of chaos and consent, deliberate lying on an unimaginable scale, and the exploitation of race, fear, and gender. If this sounds familiar, it should. If it sounds contemporary, it is.

3 Production Photography by Michelle Koebke / Diamond’s Edge BERLIN 1934: THE LAST CABARET also reflects on the irony and shattering truth of Brecht, in his 1941 allegory The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui. At the end of the play, as people like ourselves congratulate one another on defeating the tyrant and the tyranny, we hear this:

If we could learn to look instead of gawking, We'd see the horror in the heart of farce… Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men! Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard, The bitch that bore him is in heat again.

4 FROM THE STAGE DIRECTOR Alan Corbishley

When I first proposed the idea of a theatrical concert to COV just over a year ago, I could not have imagined it turning into the theatrical gem it has become. That is in large part to my collaboration with Joanna Garfinkel, who has helped generate a wonderful script around these important, yet disturbingly timely songs. As we all dived into the rich history of the German Weimar Era (1919 - 1933), it was humbling to see the immense advances in the LGBTQ communities of the day and, in particular, the studies of gender and its positive interpretations in the Berlin social nightlife. We tend to think of the Stonewall Riots of ‘69 in New York as the start of the gay movement, but one could argue it came into liberation in Berlin in the 1920’s. Had the Nazi Regime not abolished and dismantled the massive leaps made during that time, who knows where the LGBTQ community would be today. Instead, we are still fighting to have wedding cakes made, hospital visits granted, and avoid death by stoning in various parts of the world. It was also disturbing to find trends in political propaganda of the Third Reich that are being used to great effect in contemporary politics -- that being, the ‘spinning’ rhetoric of the German “lying press”, as well as the blaming of the LGBTQ ‘degenurates’, Jewish, and Immigrant communities for creating ‘economic and social ailments’. A testament to what we have NOT accomplished in the last 100 years. Understanding that our contemporary audience already knows the end of the Nazi atrocities, we wanted to focus on the naiveté of the artists who naturally could not have predicted the horrors of what was to come. We wanted this story to reflect their celebration of culture and their ambitious fight to stamp their individuality on the world. And to that end, we explore that exact moment in 1934, where fascism came in direct conflict with an ardently liberal cabaret community that was born from a rich, yet doomed, era of German democracy.

5 FROM THE DRAMATURG Joanna Garfinkel

My family came from Berlin, from this era covered in our piece; in fact, they stayed quite late. My great-grandmother built feather costume pieces for the opera in Berlin. Her son, my grandfather, was a young Jewish lawyer, and they eventually escaped to Canada when it was almost impossible to do so. So, when I had the opportunity to work with City Opera Vancouver as a collaborator and dramaturg, I felt both grateful and intimidated by the opportunity. They had already assembled some of the material, the under-heard composers – Jewish, Queer, Communist, and often at the intersections of those identities. We decided to place the piece at a precarious moment, two weeks after the Night of Long Knives. I think resistance takes many different forms, and now, when resistance to oppression is so important, we should re-examine the conventional memory of those lost in the Holocaust, too often characterized in a kind of innocuous and unchallenging suffering. We should conjure instead the different kinds of resistance those impacted carried out. Some resistance is vulgar, oblique, and funny. Some resistance wobbles its way to certainty. It feels mostly accidental that I get to be here, when I have so much in common with the disappeared subjects of this piece, at least as far as positionality. I get to be working in collaboration with the real and brilliant company assembled here, piecing together an imagined one in the last moments they would share. I’ve had a good amount of time to think about precarity; how most of my family did not escape in time. How some people sit as fascism encroaches, thinking that it will all blow over. But we get to throw a cabaret with you, and hopefully tremble our way to a salacious solidarity, a better resistance when it’s called for soon.

6 6 CAST

MEAGHAN CHENOSKY Trude Meaghan Chenosky is an award-winning actress and graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting Program. Selected credits include: Olga in Onegin (Arts Club), Judith in Miss Shakespeare (Firehall), Dyanne in Million Dollar Quartet (Chemainus/ Western Canada Theatre), Lindsay in Best Laid Plans the Musical (Touchstone/ Patrick Street) and was honoured with a Jessie Richardson Award for her performance as Dottie in Killer Joe (ITSAZOO). This is Meaghan’s first production with City Opera.

DANIEL DEORKSEN Ernst Daniel is an actor, musician and award-winning composer/sound designer. He is a graduate of UBC with a BFA in Theatre, and Co-Artistic Producer of Vancouver’s Seven Tyrants Theatre. In addition to his film and TV credits, stage credits include A Steady Rain (7T), Grease (Chemainus), Pride & Prejudice (Arts Club) & Japanese Problem (Universal Limited). His band Two Apple Tobacco has twice made the Georgia Straight’s Best of Vancouver and is looking forward to their latest release Urban Planet. Don’t miss the series of live events he regularly produces at Tyrant Studios in downtown Vancouver. Daniel is thrilled to be working with City Opera Vancouver on this exciting project.

ALEN DOMINGUEZ Sebastian City Opera Vancouver debut. Acting credits: Coriolanus (Bard on the Beach), Marine Life (Ruby Slippers), Sweat (Arts Club, Citadel) The Audience (Arts Club), Cornwall’s Christmas (Chemainus), Rent (URP), West Side Story (TUTS), The Dining Room (Western Gold), The Idiot (PuSh/Neworld). Alen has a BFA in Acting from UBC and is a co-founding member of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition, (caltac.ca). Upcoming: Anywhere but Here (PuSh/Electric Company), Henry V and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bard on the Beach).

BRENT HIROSE Fritz Brent Hirose is an actor, writer, director, voice over artist, improvisor and occasional puppeteer. He is a company member of Instant Theatre, and served as co-artistic director from 2016-2019. Recent theatre credits include Japanese Problem (Universal Limited), Sleeping Beauty Dreams (Presentation House) and Seawall (Seismic Shift Productions). He can next be seen in Consensual, March 26th-April 11th, right here at Performance Works. www.brenthirose.com

7 JULIA MUNČS Claire Julia is a queer actor, creator and physical theatre artist originally from Montreal QC and now living on unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver). She is co-founder of the physical theatre company Puppets Not Patriarchy that produced the Frankie Nominated pleasure positive show CLIO: A giant clitoris puppet learning to love herself at the Montreal Fringe 2018. Recent credits include Fräulein Schneider in Cabaret directed by Josh Epstein, Hysteria produced by Direct Theatre Collective, Synchro Swimmer in Mortified directed by Anita Rochon, and Amy in Incognito Mode: A play about porn directed by Chelsea Haberlin. Upcoming projects include the remounting and revising of CLIO: A giant clitoris puppet learning to love herself during Valentine’s Day week at the Art of Loving Sex Shop. Julia is a graduate of Studio 58.

City Opera Vancouver is a professional company and operates within the jurisdiction of the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. We thank them for their support of this production.

8 PRODUCTION TEAM

ALAN CORBISHLEY Stage Director As an award-winning arts producer and versatile opera director, Alan has had his stage works described as “poetry on stage”. As a stage director, his production of Handel’s Acis & Galatea was named one of Vancouver’s best opera productions of 2017, and his production of Nigredo Hotel with City Opera Vancouver was also on the 2018 Best of Vancouver list. In 2016, Alan conceived and directed City Opera Vancouver’s production The Lost Operas of Mozart and in 2014, Alan wrote and directed his original “silent play”, based on the life of Charlie Chaplin, entitled Silent Chap, for Western Canada Theatre’s mainstage season. He has also premiered, created and directed the following productions: Satie de Paris, Metaxu, September Songs, Webley aWaits, and Dragging Piaf – a show that received rave reviews at the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival. Other directing credits include Side by Side by Sondheim, Merry Me a Little, The Weill Project, Bad Date: A Cautionary Tale, La Chatte Metamorphosee en Femme, Elegies, among many others. Alan is also known as a baritone and has sung professionally in opera and in concert throughout North America and Europe, performing and studying with some of the world’s most prestigious companies and artists. Upcoming, Alan will be directing the Canadian premiere of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize- winning opera Angel’s Bone. www.alancorbishley.com

CHARLES BARBER Artistic Director Charles Barber (BMus, UVic; MA, DMA, Stanford) is the founding Artistic Director of City Opera Vancouver. Dr. Barber has been involved in the creation of ten new operas, including Fallujah (2012), Pauline (2014), The Lost Operas of Mozart (2016), Missing (2017), and Chinatown (2021), all City Opera commissions. Dr. Barber’s teachers include Andor Toth, George Corwin, and Carlos Kleiber. His mentors in opera were Carlos Kleiber and Sir Charles Mackerras; his apprenticeship included Semele and Der Rosenkavalier (San Francisco Opera), and The Makropulos Case and Otello (Metropolitan Opera). In popular music, he assisted Los Angeles arranger/composer Marty Paich on projects with Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, and Mel Tormé, and on the films Prince of Tides, Alive, Flatliners, Grand Canyon, The Fugitive, and Wyatt Earp. He also conducted for Stan Getz, Dan Hicks, Francis Ford Coppola, and Sarah Vaughn. Dr. Barber has written or co-written more than 90 entries in New Grove 2000. His books include Lost in the Stars (2002), The Alexander Siloti Collection (2003), and Corresponding With Carlos: A Biography of Carlos Kleiber (2011). He served as Music Advisor to the BBC’s award-winning film documentary series, The Art of Conducting.

9 JOANNA GARFINKEL Dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel is the co-founder of collectively and socially-driven play development company Universal Limited. She is the co-creator, with Yoshié Bancroft, of JAPANESE PROBLEM, a site-responsive piece about the Japanese Canadian Incarceration, which has been performed site-specifically in Vancouver, at Soulpepper in Toronto, and in several locations in between. Previously, she co-created and directed the pedicab adventure Tour for HIVE 3, produced by the Electric Company, Universal Limited, and the Cultural Olympiad. That site-specific escapade was reinvented for Victoria (Theatre SKAM), and Toronto (SummerWorks). Joanna is struck by the systemic inequities that repeat in Canada, and to troubling those patterns through performance. Recent credits include the multi-award-winning Poly Queer Love Ballad, which toured to Theatre Passe Murailles in 2019. She has been nominated for three Jessie awards, winning one (Critics Choice for Innovation); was awarded the Pure Research grant from Nightswimming Theatre (Toronto), and has received the Sydney Risk award for directing. She moved to Vancouver to get her MFA in directing at UBC, and her focus since has been primarily in new play development, multidisciplinary, and site-specific work. She has trained with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in New York, and is the is the project dramaturg for PTC. Upcoming: dramaturgy for a host of Queer work including Berlin: the Last Cabaret at PuSh, Mx at the Cultch, and Catalina La O Presenta: Ahora Conmigo with PTC.

ROGER PARTON Music Director, Vocal Coach and Arranger Roger Parton studied composition at UBC and at Concordia University, and maintains close ties both to Vancouver and Montreal. His work as contributor and editor has ranged from non-fiction (Chuck Davis’ Vancouver Book) to film (Gerald Varga’s 2018Murder Box) and dance theatre (Pol Pelletier’s Actor’s Dojo, Montréal) to music (East Van Opera’s Alma). He has worked as an orchestrator, arranging works for chamber orchestra by his mentor and teacher Wolfgang Bottenberg, and is currently transcribing the organ works of Brahms for piano. He appears regularly with City Opera in performance, as well as in rehearsal as both pianist and vocal coach. In demand as an accompanist across the Lower Mainland, he has been involved in many productions to date, including City Opera’s Lost Operas of Mozart and Missing, Opera Opulenza’s Tales of Hoffmann and Cavalleria Rusticana. Along with his active performance schedule, Roger is a member of City Opera Vancouver’s Artistic Committee and serves as principal pianist and coach.

10 JOHN WEBBER Set and Lighting Design John Webber has been designing both sets and lighting since the early 1990s, and has worked with some of Western Canada’s most talented and adventurous artists. He has received nine Jessie Richardson Awards, one Ovation Award, and in Ottawa a Capital Critics Circle Award and a Prix Rideau Award, all for outstanding design. Recent favourite credits include the lighting for Onegin at the Arts Club Goldcorp venue (Jessie Award), co-set and lighting design for Pauline and Nigredo Hotel for City Opera Vancouver, and the lighting for Rigoletto for Vancouver Opera. Some other favorite productions would include Copper Thunderbird for the National Arts Centre, Palace Grand and No Exit for the Electric Company, St. Joan for the Arts Club, and Calamity Town for Vertigo Theatre in Calgary.

Christopher David Gauthier Costume Design Christopher is a Vancouver-based creative who has designed Costumes and/or Sets for The Arts Club; Capilano University; Carousel Theatre; Citadel Theatre; Douglas College; Frank Theatre; Hardline Productions; Honest Fishmongers; Mascall Dance; Pacific Theatre; Patrick Street Productions; Realwheels Theatre; Radical Systems Art; Shaw Festival; Slamming Door; Studio 58/Langara College; Touchstone Theatre; TWU; VACT; and Yogurt Theatre Company among others. Christopher teaches design, scenic painting & prop building. 5-time Jessie & 2-time Ovation Nominee, & Studio 58 Production Graduate. Upcoming: Urinetown: the musical at Studio 58, Jan 30-Feb 16 2020; Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) at Douglas College Mar 5-13 2020. www.christopherdavidgauthier.com

Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg Movement and Choreography Tara is an award-winning creator, performer and Artistic Director of Tara Cheyenne Performance. She is known for her unique and dynamic hybrid of dance, comedy and theatre. When she isn’t creating innovative movement for theatre (Bard on the Beach, Arts Club, Studio 58, Firehall, Gateway and Indy theatre etc), she is performing her full-length solos and ensemble works around the world (highlights: bANGER, Goggles, Highgate, Porno Death Cult, -Vancouver, Smithers BC, DanceBase/ Edinburgh, South Bank Centre/London, On the Boards/Seattle USA, High Performance Rodeo/Calgary etc.). Tara lives on the unceded and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səlilw̓ ətaɁɬ (Tsleil- Waututh) and Sḵwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamisẖ Nation)/East Vancouver with her partner, composer Marc Stewart, and their son Jasper. www.taracheyenne.com

11 MELANIE THOMPSON Stage Manager Melanie Thompson is thrilled to be working with City Opera Vancouver for the first time. Selected credits: Away With Home (MISCELLANEOUS Productions), The Full Light of Day (Electric Company Theatre – Appr. SM), La bohème (Vancouver Opera – Appr. SM), Les Filles du Roi (Fugue Theatre/Urban Ink – ASM), Little Women: The Musical (Bring On Tomorrow Co.), Rock Legends (Chemainus Theatre Festival – Appr. SM), Sonic Elder (The Chop), The Out Vigil (FirePot Performance), Shrek: The Musical (Theatre Under the Stars), and Arvaarluk (Pangaea Arts). Outside of the theatre, Melanie works as a grant writer and communications manager for clients in the performing arts.

JAYSON MCLEAN Production Manager Born in Toronto and currently living in Vancouver, Jayson McLean studied at Ryerson University. He is an artist in the fields of theatre, film, television, dance, opera, and live music. Theatres include the Stratford Festival, Canadian Stage, U of T Opera Programme, and Blue Rodeo (touring). He has taught at Acadia University and over the years has lived and/or toured in Manitoba, Calgary, and Saskatchewan. In Vancouver he has taught at the University of British Columbia, Capilano University, and worked for the 2012 Olympic Games, The Arts Club Theatre, EKP productions, Pi Theatre, The PuSh Festival, Real Wheels, City Opera Vancouver, and Blackbird Theatre.

TRUDY CHALMERS General Manager Trudy Chalmers is an administrator, soprano, opera producer, artistic director and founder of Opera Opulenza and co-founder of the Vegan Congress. Trudy studied voice at Capilano University, going on to study privately in Montréal and the U.K. She began work in education administration in 2003 at the University of Sunderland in England. She then took a one-year position at the University of York as administrator/advanced MSc course secretary for the department of Computer Science, before accepting the role of academic program administrator for the MDes/MFA Material Practice & 3D Design programs in the Faculty of Art and Architecture at the University of Brighton. As well, Trudy worked as project officer, responsible for the assignment of students to volunteer positions throughout the arts community. Since 2009, she has worked as Administrative Assistant to the Dean in the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University. In 2014, Trudy opened Opera Opulenza, both to provide an educational space for singers and a performance outlet for challenging, rarely-performed operas. Her first mainstage opera production, The Tales of Hoffmann, was performed at the York Theatre in 2017. Opera Opulenza is currently part of a 3-year community engagement project in an artist-in-residency program at the Oak Park Fieldhouse granted by the City of Vancouver. Trudy leads a community opera chorus, teaches singing, and creates events and workshops for the residence of Marpole and Oakridge as well as the Emily Carr community.

12 MUSICAL NUMBERS

1. OVERTURE 7. WHITEWASH Music by Roger Parton Music by Hanns Eisler 1941 All rights reserved. Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht English translation by Neil Goold-Verschoyle 2. LIFE’S A SWINDLE (ALLES SCHWINDEL) 8. PARAGRAPH 218 Music by Music by Hanns Eisler 1929 Lyrics by Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht English translation by Jeremy Lawrence English translation by Eric Bentley Copyright © 1931 by Novello & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 9. CHUCK OUT THE MEN! (RAUS MIT DEN MAENNERN) 3. OH HOW WE WISH THAT WE By FRIEDRICH HOLLAENDER1926 WERE KIDS AGAIN RONDO-VERLAG GMBH (GEMA) Music and lyrics by Frederick Hollander English translation by Jeremy Lawrence English translation by Jeremy Lawrence All rights on behalf of RONDO-VERLAG Copyright © 1921 by Frederick Hollander GMBH administered by WC MUSIC Music CORP. Administered in the United States, Canada and Japan by Music Sales Corporation 10. DAS LIED VON DER HARTEN NUSS All Rights Reserved. (“Song of the Big Shot”) from HAPPY END Music by Kurt Weill. 4. MASCULINE AND FEMININE Text by Bertolt Brecht (MASKULINUM-FEMININUM) English translation by Michael Feingold Music by Mischa Spoliansky Presented under license from European Lyrics by Marcellus Schiffer American Music Corporation, on behalf of English translation by Jeremy Lawrence the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. Copyright © 1921 by Novello & Co. Ltd. and the Brecht Heirs All Rights Reserved. 11. WHEN THE SPECIAL GIRLFRIEND 5. I AM A VAMP! (ICH BIN EIN VAMP) (WENN DER BESTE FREUNDIN) Music by Mischa Spoliansky Music by Mischa Spoliansky Lyrics by Marcellus Schiffer Lyrics by Marcellus Schiffer English translation by Jeremy Lawrence English translation by Jeremy Lawrence Copyright © 1933 by Novello & Co. Ltd. Copyright © 1933 by Novello & Co. Ltd All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved. Lic #14724

6. EMERGENCY BRAKE (DIE 12. BLAME THE JEWS! (AN ALLEM NOTBREMSE) SIND DIE JUDEN SCHULD) By FRIEDRICH HOLLAENDER1932 Music and Lyrics by Frederick Hollander RONDO-VERLAG GMBH (GEMA) English translation by Laurence Senelick English translation by Jeremy Lawrence Copyright © 1931 by Frederick Hollander All rights on behalf of RONDO-VERLAG Music GMBH administered by WC MUSIC Administered in the United States, Canada CORP. and Japan by Music Sales Corporation All Rights Reserved.

13 13. MÜNCHHAUSEN 18. FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN Music and lyrics by Frederick Hollander (CAN’T HELP IT) English translation by Jeremy Lawrence By Frederick Hollander Copyright © 1931 by Frederick Hollander English lyrics by Reg Connelly Music Copyright © 1930 by Frederick Hollander Administered in the United States, Canada Music and Japan by Music Sales Corporation Administered in the United States, Canada All Rights Reserved. and Japan by Music Sales Corporation All Rights Reserved. 14. LAVENDER SONG (DAS LILA LIED) Music by Mischa Spoliansky 19. ON THE HARMONICA (AUF Lyrics by Marcellus Schiffer DER MUNDHARMONIKA) English translation by Jeremy Lawrence Music by Mischa Spoliansky Copyright © 1920 by Novello & Co. Ltd. Lyrics by Robert Gilbert & Universal Music Group English translation by Roger Parton All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 1956 by Novello & Co. Ltd. & CHAPPELL MUSIC LTD (PRS) 15. DRESSAGE (DRESSUR) All Rights Reserved. All rights on behalf of Music by Frederick Hollander CHAPPELL MUSIC LTD administered Lyrics by Walter Mehring by WC Music Corp. English translation by Roger Parton With the kind permission of Mischa Copyright © 1922 by Frederick Hollander Spoliansky Music. Music & Walter Mehring Administered in the United States, Canada 20. PERHAPS and Japan by Music Sales Corporation Music by Hanns Eisler 1934, 1936 All Rights Reserved Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht English translation by Bettina Jonic 16. THE DRUMMER GIRL and Katherine Helm (Die Trommlerin) Music and lyrics by Frederick Hollander English translation by Roger Parton Copyright 1928 by Helwig Hassenpflug All Rights Reserved

17. IF I COULD WISH FOR SOMETHING (WENN ICH MIR WAS WUNSCHEN DURFTE) Music and lyrics by Frederick Hollander English translation by Roger Parton Copyright © 1931 by Frederick Hollander Music Administered in the United States, Canada and Japan by Music Sales Corporation All Rights Reserved.

14 ORCHESTRA

Martin Fisk Percussion Martin Fisk holds a music degree from the University of British Columbia, where he studied with John Rudolph and Sal Ferreras. He has performed across Canada and throughout the United States, playing a wide variety of musical styles including orchestral, jazz, chamber, rock, theatre, klezmer, world music, and musical theatre. He has played with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, City Opera Vancouver, the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver New Music, Redshift Music Society, and Gamelan Gong Gita Asmara. Mr. Fisk studied in Bali, Indonesia pursuing an interest in gamelan music. He regularly teaches percussion clinics for the Whistler Music Festival and the UBC Summer Music Institute and has led workshops for all ages in classrooms throughout the Lower Mainland. He is the Assistant Director of the West Vancouver Youth Band, as well as percussion coach for the VAM Symphony Orchestra.

Ed Henderson Banjo, guitar Ed Henderson performs with Chilliwack, Diane Tell, Tangissimo, Ann Mortifee, Vancouver Symphony and many others. Has written scores for CBC, CTV, Bravo, Knowledge, Vision, The Stratford Festival, Tarragon Theater, Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Elektra Women’s Choir, The Dance Centre, Canadian Music Centre, Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, musica intima, Hamilton Symphony, Tapestry Music Theatre. His choral works are published by Schirmer/Hal Leonard, Cypress, earthsongs, and Santa Barbara. Ed has recorded three original solo guitar CDs: Intimate, guitarwall, and Winter Child and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, along with the other members of Chilliwack, in October 2019.

François Houle Clarinet Clarinetist François Houle has appeared at major festivals across Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. A prolific recording artist, he has released over twenty recordings earning multiple Juno and West Coast Music award nominations. Downbeat magazine referred to him as a “Rising Star” and “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” and the LA Times wrote he is “a spectacularly versatile clarinetist who appears to have no limitations stylistically or sonically.”

Roger Parton Arranger and keyboard Mr Parton’s biography appears on p.10.

City Opera thanks Daniel Cairns, Jeremy Lawrence, Roger Parton, Alex Weiman, and Caroline Wiese for their invaluable help with translations. City Opera Vancouver thanks the Vancouver Musicians’ Association (Local 145 of the Canadian Federation of Musicians) for its assistance in production of this opera.

15 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berlin Alexanderplatz Döblin, Alfred S. Fischer Verlag (Berlin), 1929

Blago Bung Blago Bung Bosso Fataka! First Texts of German Dada Ball, Hugo and Richard Huelsenbeck, Walter Serner BCM Atlas Press (London), 1995

Civil Society and the Collapse of the Sheri Berman. World Politics Vol. 49, No. 3 (Apr., 1997), pp. 401-429 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK

Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity Beachy, Robert. Alfred A Knopf (New York), 2014

Hannah Höch Ades, Dawn and Emily Butler, Daniel F Hermann, eds. Whitechapel Gallery, Prestel, (London), 2014

Käsebier Takes Berlin Tergit, Gabrielle (Sophie Duvernoy, Translator) New York Review of Books (New York), 2016

Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis Marhoefer, Laurie. University of Toronto Press (Toronto), 2015

Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin (Expanded Edition) Gordon, Mel. Feral House (Port Townsend), 2006

Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider Gay, Peter. WW Norton (New York), 2001

The Weimar Republic Sourcebook Kaes, Anton and Martin Jay, Edward Dimendberg, eds University of California Press (Berkeley), 1994

16 HISTORICAL ESSAY Dr Lauren Faulkner Rossi

In recent years, the resurgence of far-right populism and xenophobia cloaked in the rhetoric of patriotism has given rise to numerous comparisons to the emergence of fascism in in the 1920s and 1930s.

This was the era of the Weimar Republic, which was named after the city in which the new republic’s constitution was written, after politicians deemed Berlin too chaotic and dangerous for such an important democratic milestone. The history of the Weimar Republic has long been defined by both what came before it – an ignominious wartime defeat – and what eventually destroyed it: the rise of Nazism. It is vital, however, for the Weimar era to be understood on its own terms and by reference to the intersection of social, political, cultural, and economic events that actually comprised it. There were two major revolutions in Berlin alone in November 1918, and several revolutions in other cities in the years that followed. The adoption of a new kind of parliamentary democracy did not deter vengeful anti-republicans from their unrelenting efforts to undermine or overthrow it. Tremendous economic upheaval and hyperinflation resulted in German currency becoming virtually worthless in 1923. Social upheaval included shifts in class consciousness, the rise of the “new woman”, a steady stream of immigrants from Eastern Europe, and a new openness about sexuality.

17 Cultural and technological advances in the realms of cinema, art, architecture, music, and literature resulted in Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Tucholsky, Fritz Lang, Walter Gropius, , , and others becoming international household names. Simmering beneath it all were ever-present tensions among the growth of a liberal-capitalist system, the threat of communism, and the conviction within growing swaths of the lower-middle class that the government was indifferent to their needs. In the early 1930s, these tensions increased the appeal of far-right politicians and ultra- nationalism. These stories of the Weimar Republic, from inception to decline, reveal important lessons about economic hardship, cultural vivacity, social anxiety, and populist anger that retain contemporary relevance.

Dr. Lauren Faulkner Rossi is an historian of modern Germany at Simon Fraser University. She completed her Ph.D. at Brown University in 2009. The era of the Weimar Republic has long been her favourite period of German history to teach. Dr Rossi has generously served as principal academic advisor to City Opera in development of this project.

18 COMPOSERS In fashioning BERLIN 1934: THE LAST CABARET, we chose the music of four remarkable Weimar composers who had in common these things: great gifts, a powerful interest in experiment and disruption, a rich repertoire of cabaret gems, and Jewish heritage. All four were driven from Germany when Hitler came to power.

We also chose to ask – but cannot answer – the question of loss. Had the following artists not stayed, had they not been murdered, what might they too have given the world? In this work, we also honour Aldo Finzi, Pavel Haas, Leon Jessel, Rudolf Karel, Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa, Erwin Schulhoff, Leone Sinigaglia, Leo Smit, Karel Svenk, Viktor Ullmann, Ilse Weber, and more…

EISLER Perhaps the most overtly political of the Weimar composers, Hanns Eisler (1898 – 1962) was a close associate of Bertolt Brecht, and wrote the national anthem of East Germany. Born to a Lutheran-Jewish family in Leipzig, Eisler was beneficiary of a strong and traditional education that commenced in Vienna three years later. Following service in the Austro-Hungarian Army, from 1919 – 1923 he studied under Arnold Schoenberg. He became attracted to the Communist Party of Germany, and beginning in 1930 to the plays of Bertolt Brecht, for whom he scored music. Like most others of his era and talent, Eisler was also involved in cabaret, jazz, film, and satirical theatre. Like Brecht, he became Marxist in outlook, and devoted much of his music to its service. Their ‘Ballad of Paragraph 218’ (1929), performed in this production, may have been the first song ever written in protest against restrictive abortion laws. He fled the Nazis in 1933, and ended in Hollywood scoring such films as None But The Lonely Heart, nominated for an Oscar in 1945. He also returned to serious composition in the style of the Second Viennese School – and to Brecht, and politics. Eisler quickly ran afoul of McCarthyism, but earned the support of Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Woody Guthrie when hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was to no avail, and he was deported in 1948, ending in East Germany – but once again denounced by the Party of the day for the crime of independent thinking. He lies buried near Brecht.

19 Friedrich Hollaender with Marlene Dietrich Mischa Spoliansky

HOLLAENDER Had composer and author Friedrich Hollaender (1896 – 1976) stayed in Berlin, he would surely have perished. His father composed operetta, his uncle Gustav led the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, and his uncle Felix worked with director Max Reinhardt. Himself born in London, Friedrich emigrated to Berlin and began serious compositional study, played piano for silent films, and later composed for Max Reinhardt. After the First World War, Hollaender joined the burgeoning Weimar cabaret scene and worked with most of the prominent artists of the period. In 1931, he established the Tingel-Tangel Cabaret Theatre. Most famously, he scored the film Der Blaue Engel, writing for it the song made famous by Marlene Dietrich, ‘Falling in Love Again’. He fled the Nazis in 1933, eventually landing in Hollywood and scoring such films as Destry Rides Again, A Foreign Affair, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, and Sabrina. He returned to Germany in 1956, and to the Theater Die Kleine Freiheit and the career that might have been.

SPOLIANSKY He survived Hitler, but much of his audience did not. Today, Mischa Spoliansky (1898 – 1995) is best-remembered as composer for such filmmakers as Korda, Preminger, Litvak, Anthony Asquith, and . He frequently collaborated with . Born to a Jewish family of musicians in Russia, he moved to Vienna to study classical literature, and but soon was drawn into the Weimar cabaret circuit. His talent was recognized by Hollaender, and Spoliansky soon set texts of Kurt Tucholsky; under the pseudonym “Arno Billing”, he composed the melody for the first homosexual anthem, Das lila Lied. In the same period, he made two well-regarded recordings with , while increasingly involved in film and cabaret work. After 1933, he was forced to flee to London where he lived as a British citizen, active in film and theatre to the end.

20 COMPOSERS cont’d Certainly the most famous and often performed of the many great Weimar era composers, Kurt Weill (1900 – 1950) is today best known as a collaborator of Brecht, the husband of Lotte Lenya, the writer of Three-Penny Opera, and the symbol or sophisticated Weimar culture.

WEILL Born to a religious family in a Jewish Quarter in Saxony, Weill became interested in music at a young age. He progressed rapidly in piano and composition, fascinated by every aspect of the art. He early studied with Humperdinck, worked for Knappertsbusch, and from 1921 – 1923 studied with the great composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni. Young Weill was now composing symphonies, song cycles, psalms, and lieder. In 1922, he joined The November Group, a strongly left-wing association of radical artists, including Hanns Eisler. In the same year he wrote his first theatre piece, a pantomime for children – and his life changed. While teaching such future great musicians as Maurice Abravanel and Claudio Arrau, he was given his first performance at the Berlin Philharmonic in 1923. He married Lotte Lenya in 1926, and again in 1933, forging a creative partnership of unique vitality. It led to The Threepenny Operaof 1928, written with Brecht – and to world fame associated with other opera/music theatre works: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya 1930), Die Bürgschaft (1932), and Der Silbersee (1933). Weill fled Nazi Germany in 1933 for Paris, London, and America. Soon enough, Weill’s work was appearing on Broadway. Always identified with the political Left (though he had broken from Brecht), Kurt Weill reinvented himself as a composer of music for the American stage, and collaborated with the likes of Maxwell Anderson, Howard Dietz, Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Langston Hughes, and Fritz Lang on projects like Street Scene (1947), which won the inaugural Tony Award for Best Original Score. Other projects of the era included One Touch of Venus, Down in the Valley, Lost in the Stars, and (from Knickerbocker Holiday) the immortal September Song. He died, young and suddenly, of a heart attack, at the age of 50.

21 cmcbc concerts season four • celebrating canadian composers

Stephen Chatman Celebration 7∶00pm • March 30, 2020 Roy Barnett Recital Hall (UBC)

Co-presentation with Vancouver Chamber Choir and UBC School of Music tickets: musiccentrebc.ca/concerts

22 CITY OPERA VANCOUVER BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ethel Whitty President Krista Isberg Vice-president Jennifer Yong Governance officer Daniel Cairns, CFA Treasurer Dr Jaap Hamburger Director Daphne Rodzinyak Director Helen Song Director

Nora Kelly Founding President Janet Lea President Emerita

STAFF Charles Barber Conductor & Artistic Director Trudy Chalmers General Manager Alan Corbishley Director of concert programming Roger Parton Principal coach and rehearsal pianist Adam Abrams Webmaster Vanessa Tetangco Bookkeeper Diane Tucker Privacy officer

23 SPONSORS Thank you

The Canada Council for the Arts • The British Columbia Arts Council • The City of Vancouver, Cultural Services • Illahie Fund at the Tides Canada Foundation • Edwina and Paul Heller Memorial Fund • McLean Foundation, Toronto • Edith Lando Charitable Foundation • Hamber Foundation • John Fluevog Shoes • Leon Judah Blackmore Foundation • R & J Stern Family Foundation • Griffin Foundation • Chernoff Fine Art Inc

DONORS Thank you

Anonymous (4) Yoshiko Karasawa Jane Bathhurst Nora Kelly Alan & Elizabeth Bell Anna and John Kirkbride Pansy K P Chau Janet and Derwyn Lea Dr Kam and Mrs Katie Cheung Fred Leonard Michael Clague in memory of Barbara Clague Colin Miles the late Rosemary Cunningham Margaret and John Newton Jane Flick and Robert Heidbreder Alexandra Volkoff Brigitte and Henning Freybe Robert Young Bill Jeffries

City Opera Vancouver is a member of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver, and a Community Partner of the Canadian Music Centre. City Opera was founded in 2006.

We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia.

24 ALSO THANKS

Will Adams, Print Licensing & Data Coordinator, Music Sales Corporation, Santa Monica Arts Club Theatre Company Bard on The Beach Dr Ian Beacock, History, UBC Chanel Bonin Jackie Burns, Rights & Reproductions, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Douglas College Kelly Barker, Heather Redfern, The Cultch Prof Jon Festinger, Q.C., Centre for Digital Media Kathleen Flaherty, Playwrights Theatre Centre East Van Graphics Grendel’s Grace Engraving, Santa Cruz Jenn Griffin Frederick Hollander Music Melody Hollander, Los Angeles David Johnston Johanna Karlen Nina Krieger, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Jeremy Lawrence, San Francisco George Maloian, Sr. Director, Theatre Rights & Production, Warner Chappell Music James Maness Patrick Street Productions Dr Lauren Faulkner Rossi, History, SFU Jonathan Ryder Sound The Alarm: Music / Theatre / www.soundthealarm.ca Mischa Spoliansky Music Studio 58 / Langara College Savannah Walling, Vancouver Moving Theatre

25 PUSH FESTIVAL 2020 IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SFU WOODWARD’S CULTURAL PROGRAMS

PHOTOGRAPHY: EMILY COOPER FLYING WHITE飞白 TURNING POINT ENSEMBLE & WEN WEI DANCE

Jan 31 – 7:30pm | Feb 1 – 7:30pm | Feb 2 – 2:00pm At the SFU Fei and Milton Wong Experimental eatre,149 W Hastings St

WWW TURNINGPOINTENSEMBLE COM

26 China TOWN

A NEW OPERA BY MADELEINE THIEN NOW IN DEVELOPMENT THE VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE

COMING SEPTEMBER 2021

www.cityoperavancouver.com CONCERTS, RECITALS AND SPECIAL EVENTS YEAR ROUND