ROSENTHAL Ted
Dear Erich
Youtube-Link to the complete performance in New York
Dear Erich tells a refugee story for our times. How can a family cope as the walls of their nation's hatred close in around them? For those who escape, what lies ahead? Even in the land of the free, are they ever really free? What if they never learn the fate of loved ones left behind and the communications just stopped? What does closure mean, why does remembrance matter, where does hope come from?
Erich, a Jewish academic, escaped Nazi Germany to the U.S. shortly before Kristallnacht. The opera tells the story of a family's dual fates. Erich's journey to a new life in the new world - his studies, jazz and love - while the situation deteriorates in Germany and his family ultimately meets their cruel demise at the hands of the Nazis. Frustrated and powerless to help them emigrate, Erich must live with deep survivor guilt which affects him in his relationships with his wife and children.
CAST:
Herta (Alt)
Young Erich (Bariton)
Lili (Alt)
Freddy (Tenor)
Older Erich (Bariton)
Chor mit Solistenfunktion (10 Personen)
Jazzoper nach Briefen von Herta Rosenthal
Keine Medien vorhanden
Beschreibung
Zum Stück Dear Erich: Ted Rosenthal fand auf dem Dachboden seiner Eltern über 200 Briefen aus den Jahren 1938
bis 1941, die seine Großmutter Hertha an seinen 1938 in die USA emigrierten Vater Erich geschrieben
hatte. Erstmals erfuhr Rosenthal über die eigene tragische Familienvergangenheit in Deutschland, über die
sein Vater stets geschwiegen hatte.
Während sein Vater Erich 1938 in Chicago zu studieren begann und sich sein neues amerikanisches Leben
aufbaute, wurde die Situation für die in Deutschland verbliebene jüdische Familie im Nazi-Regime immer
dramatischer. Nachdem der Großvater die schrecklichen Ereignisse der November-Progrome 1938
(„Kristallnacht“) nicht überlebte, und es Erich nicht gelang, zumindest seine Mutter in die USA
nachkommen zu lassen, fielen letztlich alle in Deutschland verbliebenen Familienmitglieder dem
Holocaust zum Opfer, was Teds Vater nie verwinden konnte. Ted Rosenthal hat all dies auf bewegende
Weise in seiner Jazzoper Dear Erich verarbeitet.
Dear Erich endet nach einer Achterbahn der Gefühle mit dem hoffnungsvollen Schlussappell, sich an die
Vergangenheit zu erinnern, um sicherzustellen, dass sie nie wiederholt wird.
Dear Erich was commissioned by New York City Opera and received it's world premiere January 9-13, 2019, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Dear Erich was inspired by 200 newly discovered letters written in Germany between 1938 and 1941 by Herta Rosenthal to her son Erich, the composer's father.
Dear Erich addresses themes – walls and wars, refugees and immigrants, survivors and victims, the promise of a new world. Dear Erich asks what is found when a survivor forms a new family, and what gets lost when the next generation is untethered to the past? The opera's scenes of immigration and refugees in crisis raise moral dilemmas that resound to this day. Finally, Dear Erich stands for the power of remembrance, not just to honor the past but also to root us in the present and chart our future.
