Chamber orchestra gears up early for October opener

By Deborah Moon Seldner

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The Portland Chamber Orchestra will begin its 60th anniversary celebration with the Oct. 14 concert "From Darkness to Light," featuring a dark opera satirizing the Third Reich written in the Terezin concentration camp and followed by a new, uplifting klezmer concerto.
"This will be a huge project, very much central to our mission of bringing music and the visual arts together," said PCO Music Director Yaacov Bergman, noting he is attempting to incorporate artwork created by the children of Terezin and the film "Transport from Paradise" into the program.
"This complex collaborative project, incorporating music and the visual arts, will require considerable financial sponsorship for the many facets of its total concept to be realized," said Bergman.
The one-act chamber opera, "The Emperor of Atlantis," subtitled Death Abdicates, by the Jewish/Czech composer Victor Ullman, satirized Hitler and the Third Reich while delivering timeless messages of the power of life and death, according to Bergman.
Ullman composed the one-act opera to a text by Peter Kien in 1943, when both men were in the model concentration camp at Terez?n (Theresienstadt).

The Nazis established Terezin as a model camp where they could show the world the Jews were well treated. Many prominent Jewish artists and intellectuals were sent to Terezin and allowed to pursue their interests.
"The Emperor of Atlantis" is an unsentimental parable in which the dictatorial policies of "Emperor Overall" (Hitler) infuriate even Death, who goes on strike and denies his comforting touch to the terminally ill until the Emperor agrees to die himself, said Bergman.
The opera never reached the stage in Terezin.
"An SS officer attending one of the rehearsals recognized the allegorical relationship between the emperor and Hitler," said Bergman. "The next morning Ullman and almost the entire cast were shipped to Auschwitz."
The balance of this concert program will be the premiere of a new klezmer concerto by Israeli composer Ofer Ben-Amots for the renowned klezmer clarinet virtuoso and PCO guest soloist, David Krakauer.
"This concerto with its soulful and lofty spirit, will end this highly emotional program with a mood of celebration and hope," said Bergman.
Between the opera and concerto, Bergman said he hopes to be able to project artwork created by children of Terezin. He said he is working with the Oregon Jewish Museum to obtain images from the exhibit "I Never Saw Another Butterfly."
"These paintings and drawings are very powerful," said Bergman.
PCO board member Valerie Layton said, "The visuals will bring the music alive."
Additionally, prior to the concert, Bergman said he plans to screen the film "Transport from Paradise" based on the novel "Night and Hope" by Arnost Lustig, who survived Terezin during the Holocaust. The film details the Nazis' brutality against the Jewish population in what was then Czechoslovakia, and portrays the transport of Jews from Terezin to Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
"Born into a family deeply affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust where life ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka, I feel a deep personal commitment to present these significant works of art to our Portland audience," said Bergman. "They reflect the monumental courage, unflagging hope and remarkable creativity of the human spirit during those times of unfathomable horror in the concentration camps of World War II."
Those interested in providing sponsorships to enable Bergman's full vision to become reality, should contact Layton at 503-288-2375 or lytgeor@aol.com.