MY SAY: “DEAR ERICH” A JAZZ OPERA
Yesterday I went to a performance of the world premiere of an opera with music composed by Ted Rosenthal, a respected jazz pianist, author and composer, with libretto and lyrics by Ted and Leslie Rosenthal and additional lyrics by Barry Singer, E.M. Lewis and Edward Einhorn. My friend Sheila W. concurred that the work, presented by the New York City Opera at the New York Museum of Jewish Heritage is a masterpiece based on a true story.
The libretto centers on a trove of letters from a mother left behind in Germany in 1938, by a young Jew who came to America- Erich Rosenthal – the composer’s father. Erich is a cold and distant father who does not reveal anything of his past to his children, as he copes with grief and loss and guilt at his failed efforts to rescue his abandoned family. The letters from his mother stopped abruptly in 1942 when she and her neighbors and family left for the death camp Sobibor.
The music, some jazz, some operatic was performed by a wonderful and brilliant cast, interspersed with haunting and devastating flashback scenes of the horrors of the impending genocide. The broken father, nearing death, ponders about his family :”Who will remember them when I am gone?”
Thanks to this magnificent opus, they will be remembered. I came home and looked at pictures of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins- all killed in Poland and recited their names to myself….rsk
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