Opera - Brundibar  

Brundibár! His name hums and buzzes, like the music that erupts from the mechanical innards of his barrel organ when he cranks the handle. With his waltzes and songs, he entertains passers-by and reigns supreme over the market square. There's no question of anyone stealing his thunder, or his livelihood. He has no pity for anyone, especially those two little beggars, Pepícek and Aninka, who have dared to venture onto his turf. Never mind that they desperately need to buy fresh milk for their sick mother: Brundibár screams at them, chases them away and threatens them. Fortunately, the two children can count on the help of a dog, a cat and a sparrow. In the face of injustice and adversity, there's strength in numbers!
Hans Krása was a brilliant figure on the Czech music scene when the Second World War broke out. Influenced by Mahler, Schönberg and Zemlinsky, he was regarded by the Nazis as a degenerate musician and his works were banned. In 1942, he was interned at the Theresienstadt ‘model’ camp, used for propaganda purposes to deny the genocide in progress. There, together with young prisoners, he organised performances of a chamber opera for children composed in 1938 to a libretto inspired by the Grimm brothers' fairy tales - all of which were deported to and murdered in Auschwitz. A bubble of hope born in the hell of the concentration camps, Brundibár is performed here in French by the children of the Maîtrise de l'Opéra national du Rhin and the classes à horaires aménagés musique, in the poetic and mischievous theatrical world of Jeanne Candel.