Musica non grata is the name of the grand opening concert, which took place at the State Opera on Sunday, 30 August 2020. This was an event launching both the new opera season and the four-year project of the same name dedicated to theatrical and musical works of authors persecuted by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. The cycle will include operas produced in both stage and concert versions, as well as symphonic and chamber concerts organized thanks to the support of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague.
The whole Musica non grata project focused especially on the music of Czech and German composers, whose art be silenced by the Nazi ideology in the 30s and 40s. Those include the well-known “Theresienstadt composers” such as Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, Gideon Klein or Viktor Ullmann, but also many other musicians, whose lives were tragically affected by the arrogant Nazi regime one way or another. We wish to remind the public of the lives and art of people such as Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff, Rudolf Karel, Emil František Burian, Karel Berman or Ludmila Peškařová, all of them persecuted due to their origin, political views or active participation in the resistance.
However, there were also others, who were forced by the totalitarian regime. They had to emigrate and often find new lives and artistic impulses in the free world – people such as Ernst Krenek, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alexander Zemlinsky, Jaromír Weinberger, Bohuslav Martinů, Jaroslav Ježek, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler or even famous operetta composers, such as Emmerich Kálmán or Oscar Straus, and many others. As a part of the project, we will also examine the work of some of the greatest artists of the music of the 20th century, such as Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg or Arnold Schönberg, whose “degenerate” music was to disappear from the world as envisioned by the Nazis. The sheer absurdity of the hatred involved will be demonstrated by works of some of the greatest masters of all – Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Gustav Mahler, whose works –undeniable pillars of the history of European music – lacked the required “racial quality”...
The opening gala introduced the work of three composers sharing – to a certain point – similar fate. They all worked in Prague for some time and they were natural parts of the multicultural environment of Central Europe, from which they were driven by the expanding Nazi ideology. The opening moments were dedicated to the extraordinary talent of the young composed and conductor, Vítězslava Kaprálová, namely her masterful piano concert performed by the pianist Alice Rajnohová. Alexander Zemlinsky, a Jewish-German composer with Slavic roots, who actively formed and developed the opera ensemble of the New German Theatre in Prague, was represented by his two Old Testament Psalms in grand composition for chorus and orchestra. The concert was closed by the Czech Rhapsody by Bohuslav Martinů, composed at the very end of the World War I, wherein the author – being mere twenty-eight at that time – anticipated the freedom and independence of the Czech nation.
For more visit: musicanongrata.com
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