Music of Remembrance delves into the depths of memory and trauma with a heart-rending and touching set of performances
Another Sunrise and For a Look or a Touch was a Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer double bill put on by Music of Remembrance. While only showing in Seattle for one day, it is playing again in San Francisco on May 24th and Chicago on May 27th and 28th.
This showing was absolutely incredible and hauntingly beautiful. Both single act operas were stories of Holocaust survivors, delving into the very depths of the human capacity for remembering, overcoming, and surviving. They gave staggeringly real portrayals of human despair and excellent pictures of what it means to remember, with all the hardships and treasured moments inseparably associated with the basic human function.
The performers were excellent, hitting notes overflowing with emotion and passion, projecting the beautiful lyrics for the audience to feel and experience. The symphonic accompaniment was top notch, changing on a whim to fit the mood of the time, mirroring how humans feel, how they work through life.
Music of Remembrance did an outstanding job finding, curating, and sharing these stories to an audience, and I would highly recommend going to any of their future performances and productions in order to support their amazing mission ‘to tell stories that need to be told and make music that matters in the world.” They shared the “first and only major musical work to address the Nazi persecution of gay people,” in For a Look or a Touch, and a touching and heartfelt portrait of a Holocaust survivor grappling with her memory in Another Sunrise. Both works were incredibly done and unlike anything I have ever had the opportunity to experience, and I eagerly anticipate what they are able to do in the future.