The Deutsche Oper in Bismarckstrasse, Charlottenburg
By Martina Hafner
Much applause at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper at the “Concert against forgetting” in February 2023. Solo timpanist Benedikt Leithner presented a memorial program for former ensemble members who were fired by the Nazi regime. With music, dance and readings from original documents.
They were dismissed, ostracized and deported by the Nazi regime in 1933. On February 7, 2023, the Deutsche Oper commemorated former ensemble members who were expelled because of their Jewish origins or dissident attitudes for the third time at the chamber concert “Against forgetting” in the Tischlerei.
Singer Sua Jo recalled the soprano diva Beata Malkin (1892-1973) with Johannes Brahms’s “Gestillte Sehnsucht”, actress Margarita Broich (62) read with a lot of verve from an armored letter that Malkin wrote to the opera management at the time.
Equally gripping was the pulsating “Circus Septet No. 2” by Hanns Eisler, which was performed for the theater painter Georg Freude (born 1884), who was imprisoned by the Nazis.
The highlight was the appearance of the State Ballet soloist Iana Balova, who paid tribute to the former opera dancer Julia Marcus (1905-2002). In the 1930s, she caused a sensation in Berlin’s cabarets with her Hitler parodies.
With a tutu, pointe shoes and a little beard, Balova showed grotesque movements to Julius Fucik’s “Invasion of the Gladiators”. Funny, but also disturbing.