Opera banned by Nazis revived in L.A.

[The Straight Story]

Opera banned by Nazis revived in L.A.
Review: L.A. Opera's "Recovered Voices" restores "The Birds."


The history of music – of all the arts, really – belongs to the innovators, the rebels and the revolutionaries. Those that follow in their path, no matter how skilled or gifted, are for the most part forgotten. Which is to say that conservative artists, those that look back instead of forward, rarely get a fair shake.

The German composer Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) didn't get a fair shake. Los Angeles Opera tried to do something about that Saturday night when it revived his rarely heard opera from 1920, "The Birds," as part of the company's "Recovered Voices" project. Spearheaded by music director James Conlon, the project unearths music banned by the Nazis, including that written by victims of the Holocaust. Now in its third season (and long may it continue), "Recovered Voices" has already hit gold with performances of operas by Viktor Ullmann and Alexander Zemlinsky.

Braunfels is a special case. Half Jewish, but converted to Catholicism, he seems to have run afoul of the Nazis not for racial reasons, but for his criticism of them in the 1920s and for his refusal to write the group an anthem. When, in the 1930s, the Nazis banned performances of his music and designated it "degenerate," Braunfels' career was essentially over, though he survived the war and continued to write music. By the time his music was again performed after 1945, it was considered old-fashioned. Music history had moved on.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/music-birds-braunfels-2362097-good-opera

[rucky]

1. Nice post-Hitler

revival