There are still some holes in this item - for example, *where* in Chicago?
- but the basic information is correct.

My source is Mirra Bank, director of "Last Dance," the new, wondrous
documentary on the Pilobolus-Maurice Sendak "collaboration" (you'll
understand the quote marks when you see the film), resulting in the
full-length dance piece, "A Selection."

A basic element of "A Selection" (the "Sophie's Choice"-like separation
of children to live - for a while longer - or to die) is "Brundibar," Hans
Krasa's opera for children in the Teresienstadt ghetto, performed there 55
times as part of a Nazi showcase to prove that life in the concentration
camps was just peachy.

Looks like that Sendak enlisted Tony Kushner to write a new libretto to
Krasa's music, heard throughout "A Selection." The music is outstanding,
if anything, an improvement over the works of Krasa's teacher, Alexander
Zemlinsky.  It has been performed several times in recent years and even
recorded, mostly in the Czech Republic, but elsewhere as well.

The opera resulting from the the Sendak-Kushner cooperation will be an
essentially new opera, under the original name (I think), to be performed
in the US this winter.  As I said, I don't know what company is involved -
it's not the Lyric, "Chicago Opera Theatre" cannot be located on the Web,
and I am out of ideas.  If somebody knows, please let me know.  And, if
"Last Dance" is screened anywhere near you, don't miss it.  (My only
problem with the film is that it carries a title that belongs to a half
dozen other movies.)

Janos Gereben/SF
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