Letter from Prague and Terezín
As a producer, there are few occasions one feels an opera has been taken to some degree of final, artistic completion. There’s a feeling that with just one more show, workshop, or presentation to an audience that ‘really should see it’, you might be satisfied. This will probably always be the case, but the Canadian Children’s Opera Company’s 2017 production of Brundibár certainly came as close as possible to reaching that ideal.
The history of this charming Czech children’s opera is, in itself, as operatic as they come. , composed by Hans Krása to Adolf Hoffmeister’s libretto, was written for a 1938 radio competition, later cancelled due to political events in pre-war Czechoslovakia. It remained unperformed until Krása brought the work to
