brundibar the bumblebee

I don't know how to do children's books. I don't believe in children's books. I did it because this was the form that pulled me or drove me, not because I had a passion for children. . . . I have very little respect for books that are written -- quote -- for children.

I was pleased to read in the Times on Friday that the Czech children's opera Brundibar will be staged at at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven through March before it moves to the New Victory Theater in New York through May. I am an absolute nut about Czech children's opera.

Okay, maybe not. But I was pleased to read about it, since it is a project of Maurice Sendak. This summer, I visited the Jewish Museum to see its exhibit "Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak." I'll admit that before I went, I was just hoping to learn a little more about one of my favorite books as a child, to find out what other works Sendak had written, and to buy some fun Wild Things merchandise (because I am ever the child of my mother, who never met a museum gift shop she wouldn't gladly skip the actual exhibit for). And I did score a cool shirt, but I gained so much more.

First of all? I didn't even know that Sendak was Jewish. The location of this exhibit certainly tipped me off, but before that? No clue. But then again, I'm not very bright. Secondly? I had no idea that Where the Wild Things Are was so controversial upon its publication in 1963. Parents' groups objected to the "scary" monsters depicted, as well as Max's "insubordination" towards his mother. This surprised me because as a child, I certainly wasn't afraid of Max's playmates, nor was I inspired to commit acts of rebellion after reading the book. Of course, it won the Caldecott Medal the next year, which just goes to show you what potential censors know.

I was most shocked to learn what a dark and tormented man Sendak was (and still is, if recent interviews are any indication). He was raised in 1930's Brooklyn by his recent-immigrant parents who were tortured by the loss of their families back in Eastern Europe. On the morning of young Maurice's bar mitzvah, they received word that his paternal grandparents had died in Poland, victims of the Holocaust. As a kid he was haunted by the spectre of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the events of which unfolded in nearby New Jersey and the Bronx. The Wild Things were actually based on his aunts and uncles, but Sendak has said that for him, they also represent the demons he has tried to fight his whole life. Even Brundibar became for him "the epitome of all this loss. I wanted to stop dwelling on it, the way I used to dwell on the Lindbergh case. I felt that if I could just do Brundibar right, then maybe this would be the end of the fever."

As he noted, his work has been therapuetic for him, as have his passions for Melville and Mozart. His set design and costumes for The Magic Flute were originally created for Houston Grand Opera's production in the late 1980's, and his dog's name is Herman.

This staging of Brundibar (Czech for "bumblebee") is based on Sendak's 2003 children's book of the same name, written in collaboration with Tony Kushner, who penned the libretto for the current production. That book, in turn, is inspired by the original Czech opera,

by Hans Krasa, with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, which was first performed in 1942 at a Jewish orphanage in Prague. . . . [T]he story is simple and affirmative: two children, Aninku and Pepicek, caring for their ailing mother, are told by the doctor that she must have milk if she is to recover. They go into town and, while trying to raise some money by singing together, are chased away by a nasty hurdy-gurdy grinder named Brundibar . . . After being joined by other children and some talking animals, though, Aninku and Pepicek prevail in true operatic fashion: they raise a bucketful of cash, drive Brundibar out of town and return home with the precious, life-sustaining milk.

What gives the opera additional poignancy is that shortly before the first performance, Krasa, a Jew, was arrested and sent in an early transport to Theresienstadt, the "model camp" that was in fact a way station for Auschwitz. Under Krasa's direction, Brundibar was subsequently performed 55 times at Theresienstadt, with a cast of imprisoned children, for an audience that sometimes consisted of visitors sent by the Nazis, trying to demonstrate how humane they were.

"Think of it," Mr. Sendak said. "There was this bunch of children, and after every performance a part of the cast was sent off to Auschwitz, and then the next group of kids took over."

The costumes and music for Brundibar were part of the Jewish Museum's exhibit this summer, and both are gorgeous. New Havenites and New Yorkers, I encourage you to see this wonderful production!

NYT article

PBS feature on Brundibar

NPR interview with Sendak