Music From The Jewish Ghetto: The Holocaust Returns

RIDGEFIELD — Ghetto Tango confirms one of the amazing powers of music: to exist and even flourish in the most difficult of human circumstances. Singer Adrienne Cooper and pianist/arranger Zalmen Mlotek, internationally acclaimed interpreters of Jewish musical traditions and celebrated performers, bring an electrifying theatrically to the unknown song repertoire of World War II Jewish theaters with their show, which will be presented at The Ridgefield Playhouse on June 3.

Ghetto Tango narrates a story of enduring creativity that engages the black humor, rage and anxiety of the artists who created this music. The play features songs by David Biegelman, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler and others. Its musical voice ranges from tango to Broadway, topical cabaret to Jewish folk and Italian opera.

Nearly two decades of the performers’ research and involvement with musical materials from the Holocaust have contributed to the creation of Ghetto Tango: music in extremis. Their work has benefited from the nearly inconceivable collection and preservation efforts carried on both during and after the war, resulting in a complex musical legacy of songs and theatrical sketches created in the wartime ghettos.

Ghetto Tango is part of an ongoing effort to create a sense of the full dimensions of pre-Holocaust Jewish lift as well as the spirit of resistance during the war years. Ms Cooper describes the music as offering a complex range of subject material and expression: sad, upbeat, ironic, funny. In sense, according to Ms Cooper, “They reflect their experiences.”

Ghetto Tango will be performed at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Sunday, June 3, at 4 pm. Tickets range from $20 to $30 each, and are available at the box office or over the phone at 203-438-5795. The playhouse is at 80 East Ridge Avenue (behind “the old high school”); the box office is open Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 pm. Further information can be found at www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org.