Good memories this a.m.

Elisabeth, the musical is on YouTube. The picture is small, but it was fun to see the comments below the segments. I'm only posting the clip below because the director, Harry Kupfer was so brilliant. The relevant scene is the first one of the segment. In less than three minutes he depicts the rise of antisemitism and that evolving into what became the Nazi movement. There is much racism in the text, and echoes of things you hear today in the US... how socialists and communists are dirt who will be crushed. What it had to do with the Empress Elisabeth? She loved the poet Heinrich Heine, who was defamed because he was Jewish. The second song is her writing poetry, trying to call up his ghost, but only her deceased father answers and tries to get her back to taking part in life again, but she is too bitter. The third is one of my favorite songs, Rudolph pleading with his mother to intervene with the Emperor on his behalf. It's called 'If I were your mirror'. He has been rejected by her, and in the end, she rejects him, saying 'I won't ask anything of him for myself, and I won't intercede for you.'

But as above, the first thing is the one that took my breath away, it was so brilliant in the staging. 'Hate and Violence'. Despite my explaining it every time, my cousin L was always amazed at the dead silence in the theater every time she saw it. The first time, she wanted to applaud, and I grabbed her arm and hissed 'Don't you dare!' in her ear. That number held up a mirror to local society that made them uncomfortable and ashamed. And yes, it was brilliantly staged.

So you can take a look.