1 Compositional Note: Acknowledgement of Country Project Leader’s Introduction Out of the Shadows: rediscovering Jewish music and theatre would like to It’s a real privilege to introduce the international festival Out of the Shadows: pay respect to the elders and traditional owners of the land on which we rediscovering Jewish music and theatre, taking place in Sydney from August perform our works: the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. As we share our 5th to 13th 2017. own knowledge, teaching, performance, learning and research practices may This is the fourth of five major festivals spanning the globe. Performing to we also pay respect to the knowledge embedded forever within the Aboriginal nearly 10,000 people in total, these have taken place in Madison, US, Leeds/ Custodianship of Country. York, UK, and Prague, Pilsen and Terezín, Czech Republic. The concluding festival will take place in Cape Town, South Africa in September 2017. Dean’s Welcome These festivals fall under the auspices of the UK Arts & Humanities Research On behalf of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney, it Council project Performing the Jewish Archive (www.ptja.leeds.ac.uk), a is my pleasure to welcome you to Out of the Shadows: rediscovering Jewish collaboration between the Universities of Leeds, York, Wisconsin-Madison and music and theatre, a festival organised by Performing the Jewish Archive Sydney, alongside 25 partner organisations around the world. (a British AHRC research project). Our project team seeks out and recovers artefacts from the vast hidden Dr Joseph Toltz, together with overseas project colleagues, has assembled accumulation of Jewish music and theatre that was forgotten or thought lost a festival of fascinating works created by Jewish refugee artists, involving because of the Holocaust, whether directly or indirectly. The team retell stories Conservatorium and University of Sydney staff and students. of those who created these pieces, bring them to life in performance, and test how audiences and performers alike respond. Jazz students, led by Dr Kevin Hunt, will accompany the cabaret performances in the Seymour Centre directed by Associate Professor Ian Maxwell from Out of the Shadows promises to be a memorable, poignant and sometimes the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, while Conservatorium challenging week of events, celebrating the lives and achievements of Jewish composition students have arranged and composed works that resonate with artists in times of both adversity and freedom. We look forward to welcoming the themes of exile and refuge that emerge from the project. Conservatorium you throughout the festival. staff and students past and present will also perform in the festival. There is an added resonance about the performance space: Verbrugghen Hall Associate Professor Stephen Muir was an important venue for Jewish refugee artists. The Bodenwieser Ballet’s Principal Investigator, Performing the Jewish Archive early works were held on the stage, Musica Viva had their first concert here led by Richard Goldner, and many refugee composers and performers trod the very same boards on which our artists will stand. Composers, performers, dancers and writers with Jewish heritage have long been associated with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and we are delighted to host this festival. The British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: ancient history, modern dance, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, English literature, design, the creative and Professor Anna Reid performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately Head of School and Dean £98m to fund research and postgraduate training in collaboration with a number of partners. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please visit: www.ahrc.ac.uk 2 3 Performances Out Of the Shadows Gala Opening Night: Dance and Orchestral works from Jewish Refugees in Exile The choirmaster of the Vienna State has been orchestrated for tonight’s Opera, Adolf Fleischner, fled Austria performance by Aidan Rosa. The after the German invasion. During Test of Strength was performed in 1940-1942 under his pen-name “H.A. 1953 after the company’s successful Peter”, he composed Fantasie für tour of India, with music composed Orchester. During the spring of 1944, by Werner Baer. Both works were wary of a Nazi takeover of Finland, he discovered by Dr Joseph Toltz in fled to Sweden, settling permanently the Bodenwieser Collection at the in Borås, where he worked as a music National Library of Australia. teacher and chorus-master. In 1934 Simon Parmet composed music Trauermusik was written by Georg for a performance of S. An-sky’s play Tintner in 1939 in London, while The Dybbuk at the National Theatre the Austrian refugee was waiting of Finland. Maggie Gripenberg for passage to New Zealand. He created a choreography for the completed it 18 months later in Dance of the Poor, which received a Auckland, and in 1948 arranged repeat performance under the name Trauermusik for orchestra for an Life Goes On at an international From left to right: George Tinter, H.A. Peter & Simon Parmet ABC/APRA composition competition. competition in Stockholm in 1945. It was premiered by the Sydney The only surviving part of Parmet’s 5th August Symphony Orchestra, conducted by composition for The Dybbuk is a piano Nikolai Malko. The score and parts reduction, reorchestrated for this 7.30pm went missing but were rediscovered performance by Ian Whitney. Verbruggen Hall by the composer’s widow in 2015, Out of the Shadows is proud to filed under the competition alias in a present a newly commissioned Conductor Roger Benedict Werner Baer collection at the National Library of dance work for this presentation Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows The Test of Strength Australia. of The Dybuuk, choreographed and Sydney Conservatorium of Music Marcel Lorber Schuld-Kain and The Test of Strength performed by Benjamin Hancock. Symphony Orchestra Schuld-Kain (orchestral arrangement are two works written for the Choreographer and dancer, by Aidan Rosa) Bodenwieser Ballet. Schuld-Kain The Dybbuk Benjamin Hancock was written in Bogota by Marcel Simon Parmet Lorber, the company’s pianist since H.A. Peter The Dybbuk (orchestral arrangement Dr Simo Muir, Lead researcher for 1920. It is unclear if this was the Fantasie für Orchester (world premiere) by Ian Whitney) Simon Parmet and H.A. Peter genesis for the work Cain and Abel, Georg Tintner which was premiered in 1940 at Dr Joseph Toltz, Lead researcher for Trauermusik Verbrugghen Hall. Schuld-Kain Werner Baer and Marcel Lorber 4 5 Performances Seven Deadly Sins A ballet chanté by Kurt Weill (music) and Bertolt Brecht (original German text) English translation by WH Auden and Chester Kallman 1933: Weill and Brecht collaborate The big visual reference of Seven on Seven Deadly Sins, their works Deadly Sins, and that of refugee (and are banned in Nazi Berlin, and they later Holocaust) Europe are trains are exiles in Paris. Weill, the son that carry the two Annas between of a Jewish cantor, and Brecht, his cities of temptation. In my staging, a communist librettist, were persona human train of refugees is realised non grata in Germany. The pair wrote through creative movement and a ballet chanté as their last work technical effects. To maximize the together. Set in America, Seven Deadly Brechtian theatre, this is clearly Sins original performances were sung revealed: there are no sets or props. in German and premiered in Paris. It Our production probably won’t cause is a vision of the New World through the audience to rise up in revolution jaded, betrayed eyes in the Old. The against injustice, as Brecht hoped in need for shelter, fear of capitalism’s 1933. In that year, America, Britain temptations, and lengths to which one and its Empire had not yet refused must go to survive, are themes Brecht entrance to Jewish emigres; seeking writ large in this work. It was not asylum and the Holocaust itself were performed in New York until the 1950s. unknowns. However, it is my fervent Our production shows the challenge of wish that this staging of Seven Deadly Sins Director Chryssy Tintner CAST the times of its creation. The two Annas makes contemporary viewers Choreographer Sara Black work hard to satisfy their demanding think a little. May Weill’s lilting Jessica Aszodi, Anna I (soprano) Costume designer Aleisa Jelbart family. While to us they may seem melodies, dripping with heritage, Marlo Benjamin, Anna II (dancer) Lighting design Digby Richards grasping, in this period the family satire and empathy, help the medicine Michael Butchard, Tenor I (family) Conductor Roger Benedict would have been recognisable as go down. Refugees, then as now, Blake Fischer, Tenor II (family) emigrés who knew the value of shelter could be any one of us. Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows Simon Lobelson, Baritone (family) and money, having lived without. The Wade Kernot, Bass (family) Sydney Conservatorium of Music singer Anna is not a bad person: she Symphony Orchestra has been dealt a hard hand of cards. Chryssy Tintner DANCERS She will do anything to keep winning, Director, Seven Deadly Sins Raghav Handa including sacrificing her sister/softer Olivia Kingston side, the tender, innocent dancer Anna. Cody Lavery Success in the Seven Deadly Sins is judged by wealth, sentiment seen as Harry Pohl This performance is funded in part by failure. Picture: Poses from The Demon Machine By D’ora the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Benda. Bodenwieser Collection, National Library Of Inc., New York, NY. Australia. 6 7 Performances Red-Riding Hood: A Children’s Opera by Will Grant (music arranged by Roy Douglas) and Rose Fyleman (text) Red-Riding-Hood is a small, witty invitation from Warner Bros studios to children’s operetta written by Wilhelm go to Hollywood.