Music Of Remembrance Is Online This Week With Heggie And Scheer's FOR A LOOK OR A TOUCH

From May 18 until May 25, Music of Remembrance will be streaming composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer's compelling musical drama about the persecution of gays during the Holocaust - https://www.musicofremembrance.org/watch-and-listen/look-or-touch.

This is a topic that is too little known and too rarely discussed. In 2007 Music of Remembrance commissioned composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer to create the musical drama For a Look or a Touch. The work's title refers to a provision in Paragraph 175 - the pre-Nazi German law criminalizing homosexuality - under which people could be arrested simply for an affectionate glance or an innocent caress. The Reich considered homosexuality a symptom of "racial degeneracy," and homosexuals were incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. Through the rigorous enforcement of Paragraph 175, the Nazis murdered thousands and shattered the lives of countless others.

For a Look or a Touch was inspired by the true love story of Manfred Lewin and Gad Beck, two young men who were doubly targeted as both Jewish and gay. Manfred was murdered in Auschwitz, but his journal with its poetic entries about his love with Gad was preserved and now resides in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gad survived harsh imprisonment and lived until 2012.

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer tell their story with deep compassion that never descends to pathos or sentimentality. The music, of heart-stopping beauty, conveys a wisdom that helps us to appreciate those touched by the Holocaust in all of their complicated humanity. It's also a profound meditation on memory itself.

Before COVID-19, we were planning to feature For a Look or a Touch at our concerts this month in Seattle and San Francisco. We've rescheduled that program for our May 2021 concerts, but in the meantime we invite you to view our 2016 performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with charismatic baritone Michael Mayes as Manfred and the late great musical actor Robert Orth as Gad. The production was directed by Erich Parce. MOR's instrumental ensemble, all members of the Seattle Symphony, is conducted by Joseph Mechavich. Click here to watch.

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