The 21C Music Pageant presents The Journal of Hélène Berr, a piece for soprano, piano and string quartet in its North American premiere.
Soprano Elena Howard-Scott, who lately took the stage in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, performs with pianist Stéphane Mayer, and The Glenn Gould Faculty Quartet (Byungchan Lee, violin; Daria Schibitcaia, violin; Hezekiah Leung, viola; Peter Eom, cello).
It’s a singular work that brings a tragic story to life.
Hélène Berr
On April 7, 1942, Parisian pupil Hélène Berr started a journal, devoted to her lover Jean Morawiecki. The 21-year-old studied English literature on the Sorbonne. She was additionally Jewish, and her two-year diary paperwork her life below the more and more oppressive Nazi Occupation.
The journal ends in early 1944, shortly earlier than Berr and her household had been deported to Auschwitz. They had been among the many final of the Jews to be taken from Paris. Hélène would die in April 1945 on the Bergen-Belsen camp, a sufferer of typhoid and a brutal beating by jail guards as a result of she couldn’t stand up for morning name.
It was 5 days earlier than the liberation of the camp by Allied forces.
Hélène’s brother despatched the pages she’d written, and stored protected by entrusting them to the household’s cook dinner, to Jean Morawiecki. Heartbroken, Jean held on to the doc for nearly a half century earlier than relations satisfied him it needs to be revealed.
LvT spoke to Belgian composer Bernard Foccroulle in regards to the undertaking.
From the unique French manufacturing with soprano Adèle Charvet, pianist Jeanne Bleuse et le Quatuor Béla:
Composer Bernard Foccroulle: The Interview
The street to composing The Journal of Hélène Berr was a winding path for composer Bernard Foccroulle. Again in 2018, he was Common Director of the Pageant d’Aix-en-Provence, and was approached by Le Quatuor Béla to jot down a bit for them. “A full night piece,” Foccroulle recollects.
“A full night piece for a string quartet — it’s not simple to do.” He’d already thought of the concept of including a vocalist. “A buddy of mine despatched me this guide.” The guide, after all, being The Journal of Hélène Berr. “I began studying it with no particular thought,” he provides.
“In the course of it, it grew to become to me apparent that this was the type of materials that will make sense with a string quartet.”
Hélène wrote the journal to her boyfriend, however, as he factors out, additionally to her future, one which she hoped to reside out. “It was an affidavit of the lifetime of Jews in Paris throughout these horrible years.”
Hélène was a violinist, and wrote an ideal deal about music. “Music was most likely the primary hyperlink between her and her love,” Bernard believes. Hélène’s sister, a pianist, survived the camp. “I by no means met her sister, however I met her niece, who’s the one who revealed this manuscript.”
Berr wrote poetry alongside along with her diary entries. “Her quotations of English poetry are simply superb,” Foccroulle says.
His resolution to make use of the fabric was instant, however he realized, in requesting the rights, that the result was by no means sure. At first, the household was divided on whether or not or to not grant him the rights to make use of her diary in a musical undertaking.
“In the long run, I obtained the rights,” he says. The entire household made it to the premiere in France in 2023, which made him completely happy.
After about 20 performances in France, the Koerner Corridor presentation will probably be a North American premiere. “It’s the primary day out of France,” he says. “It’s the primary time it’s made with a brand new ensemble of artists.”
The forged is now a full Canadian model, as he factors out. “It’s the primary time it’s carried out in a second language.” The spoken parts of the textual content will probably be in English, however sung in French.
“It’s additionally a really effectively written language,” he says of the Journal. Berr was a gifted author. He notes that there have been nearly no corrections to the unique manuscript.
“What attracted me on the time, there have been a number of issues,” Foccroulle says. He observed, amongst different parts, her attraction to the pure world. “This speaks to me very, very a lot.”
As a composer of a vocal work, the story has a type of mounted arc, however one with nuance on account of Berr’s writing and observations. “The precedence is the drama,” he explains. “There may be plenty of mild, and plenty of darkness.” A essential characteristic of her journal, nonetheless, is that these moments of sunshine and darkness are combined into one another.
“I made the libretto simply from her personal texts,” he says. Her ideas and observations provide a mirror into her world. Storms grow to be a type of recurring picture. “Every storm in her diary turns into a type of a mirror of her personal emotions, her anxiousness and worry.”
Like every younger 20-something, her information of the surface world is restricted at first, however grows because the Occupation drags on. “You will have a younger lovely lady strolling in Paris, having fun with the life […] however on the identical time, you’ve got somebody who’s conscious of the tragedy.”
The story essentially turns into darker and darker because the forces of the surface world shut in on Hélène and her household. “However, even very near the tip, there are moments of pure pleasure,” Foccroulle says. “It’s not unidimensional. It’s greater than that.”
Very early within the guide, Foccroulle notes, she talks of her premonitions of tragedy. However, ultimately, she nonetheless decides to remain in Paris. “For a musician, it’s very attention-grabbing to have such a portrait of such high quality, with this affiliation of sunshine and darkness,” he says.
The timing of the undertaking was apt, the composer feels. “One of many first the reason why I made a decision to do that, after all, I’m very a lot conscious that we live in a interval the place antisemitism and racism are rising at a really quick velocity.”
The Manufacturing
Foccroulle has been Zooming in on rehearsals with director Matthew Jocelyn. Jocelyn can also be Common Director of the Koffler Arts Centre, who had been instrumental in bringing the manufacturing to Toronto.
“I’m very touched that he made plenty of efforts to make this potential,” Bernard says. “I’m very curious to listen to what the Toronto viewers will take from it.”
- Discover particulars and tickets for the performances January 21, 22, and 23 [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.