VIDEO: Get A First Look At DEAR ERICH, A New Jazz Opera by Composer Ted Rosenthal
By: Alan Henry Jan. 07, 2019
In the video watch as Jessica Tyler Wright sings an excerpt from the new Jazz opera Dear Erich, with composer, Ted Rosenthal at the piano. Opening night is this week, Wednesday, January 9, 2018, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, at The Museum of Jewish Heritage.
For tickets call: (212) 213-2120
DEAR ERICH, the compelling true story of tragedy, love, and redemption, is the first of two world premieres which will be presented this season by New York City Opera, to be followed in June by Iain Bell's STONEWALL. DEAR ERICH will be directed by Mikhaela Mahony, with a libretto by Lesley Rosenthal and Ted Rosenthal, and additional lyrics by Barry Singer, E.M. Lewis, Edward Einhorn, and will feature a cast of nine headed by Jessica Tyler Wright, Glenn Seven Allen, Rachel Zatcoff, and Peter Kendall Clark.
Ted Rosenthal was inspired to write DEAR ERICH when he discovered over 200 letters (subsequently translated by Dr. Peter Schmidt) written in Germany between 1938 and 1941 by his grandmother, Herta Rosenthal, to his father, Erich, a Jewish scholar who escaped to the United States. Set in wartime Germany and Chicago, Rosenthal, a winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, employs the musical idioms of the 1930's and 40's to create this poignant retelling of his own family history - the heartbreaking story of a family's dual fates - a son's journey and new life in the New World, and the cruel demise of his family at the hands of the Nazis which he was powerless to stop.
DEAR ERICH will feature set design by John Farrell, costume design by Janet O'Neill, and lighting design by Susan Roth.
The performance schedule of DEAR ERICH will be performed Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30pm (opening night); Thursday, January 10 and Saturday, January 12 at 7:30pm; and Sunday, January 13 at 1 pm. Tickets, starting at $25, are available at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1002412.
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