Songs filmed at the performance of The People’s Opera
Click a title for video and song notes.
Us Two (Part 1 ) and Us Two (Part 2)
I set this five line poem by Nina Cassian to music. It has passion and says so much…
‘My God, what a dream I had,
the two of us, more passionate than ever,
making love like the first couple on earth….
– and we were beautiful, naked and wild,
and both dead.’
The Survivor
I set this poem by Tadeusz Rozewicz to music and Bim Sinclair arranged it. The translator of the poem Adam Czerniawski wrote …” your ( Rozewicz ) poetry is commonly described as simple, naked. This deceived people into thinking that it is easy to write….only when one tries to translate it does one discover its tightly thought out structure.”
The Daghanis’ Story (Brighton)
I believe Arnold Daghani to be one of the finest chroniclers/ painters of all time. Arnold and his wife Nanino’s story is astonishing. The only two people to escape what became a death camp, wading through the River Bug with his paintings and diaries in a tube from the forced labour camp where everyone else was later shot as recorded in Daghani’s book The Grave Is In The Cherry Orchard.
The Daghanis came to live in Brighton and many of his works were saved byThe Centre For German – Jewish Studies at University of Sussex.
Never and Never (Reprise)
Never can I hear again, the sound of violins
If I hear their cry, I only see again
When the music stopped, what happened then
Based on the words from the writer Micheline Maurel, Angi Mariani created this heartfelt lyric about The Holocaust and the singers with The Rainbow Chorus and Brighton and Hove Youth Orchestra deliver this plea. Angi played Micheline in this people’s opera which also commemorated the genocide in Darfur and you can see on Latest TV on Holocaust Memorial Day and repeated that week.
Josef and Sara’s Waltz
I love this scene from our people’s opera as it expresses all the love and joy of humanity at its best with just dancing and music, Josef and Sara’s Waltz is composed by Mark Jolyon Sinclair known to all as Bim Sinclair.
When we first made the album Songs ForThe Betrayed World which led to the opera I collaborated closely with Bim and with Angi Mariani who wrote many of the songs and also on arrangements with “ one of the world’s finest bass players” not just my view but The Guinness Encyclopaedia of Popular Music, Herbie Flowers.
Missing
Genocide has taken many lives in the last century but it has created many disappeared and many refugees too. This song written by Angi Mariani is about that human tragedy and particularly in Darfur in Africa. I think the song brings home in a personal way the stories which often are portrayed just as numbers in TV news.
Joan’s Darfur Story
There were more people killed in the last century in wars than ever before. More evil than medieval. And never again became sadly one more time too many times. The genocide in Darfur has seen hundreds of thousands killed and millions forced into refugee camps. Halima Bashir’s book ‘Tears of the Desert’ tells the story as Anne Frank described Nazism.
I found this poem – which I set to music – in a modern poetry book Klaonica published by Bloodaxe Books about Bosnia and specifically the genocide at Srebenica in 1995. The writer Kevin Carey from Brighton makes the link between Dachau, My Lai and Kampuchea and by inference all genocides. Kevin Carey made the link of being vigilant – again and again. (Bill Smith)
I Didn’t Do It On Purpose
Tadeusz Borowski suffered from survivor’s guilt – he was in no way complicit of course and the key words in this short excerpt from the opera are taken from Borowski, Szymon Laks and Music of Another World. (Bill Smith)
How Can We Write Poetry?
This excerpt has the Tadeusz Rozewicz poem ‘The Moon Shines’ as key message. The German critic Theodore Adorno said “After Auschwitz poetry is barbaric” but for many there is a greater imperative – the need to tell the truth and give voice to the feelings of anger and despair at the unspeakable horror.
Gloomy Sunday
Commonly known as The Suicide Song this version in this people’s opera is largely based on the version on Angi Mariani’s album as Eminemmylou – Muthabanjo. That album has had many millions of listens and the version on that album with Legs MC contributed significantly to that. Angi related the story of the many versions of the song at The Catalyst Club at Latest MusicBar Brighton.
This Way For The Gas
Seth Morgan plays the key role of Tadeusz Borowski in this people’s opera for which he deservedly won Best Actor at Brighton Festival and Fringe Awards. Angi Mariani and I adapted the words from the book by Borowski which describes in everyday fashion the truth about what it was like to work in and around the gas chambers. Its power is its ordinariness so I tried to underline that as a composer by giving the song an everyday ballad feel. (Bill Smith)
Pigtail
When Angi Mariani gave me the book ‘The Poetry of Survival’ edited by Daniel Weissbort, one of the first poems I set to music was this poem by Tadeusz Rozewicz. Later I set another of his poems to music ‘The Survivor’. I didn’t know it at the time but he is recognised as one of the greats in European poetry. When we made the album ‘Songs For The Betrayed World’, we were joined by Bim Sinclair who arranged so much and wrote some wonderful tunes for our album ‘Songs For The Betrayed World’.
Joan
There were more people killed in the last century in wars than ever before. More evil than medieval. And never again became sadly one more time too many times. The genocide in Darfur has seen hundreds of thousands killed and millions forced into refugee camps. Halima Bashir’s book ‘Tears of the Desert’ tells the story as Anne Frank described Nazism.
Jacob’s Jig
This memorable and truly joyful jig was composed by Bim Sinclair for the album Songs For The Betrayed World by The Life and Death Orchestra. Working with Bim – a great composer – was marvelous and his compositions added so much to that album and the consequent people’s opera from which this is an excerpt.
I Remember Your Smile
Tadeusz Borowski was a supreme love poet and this poem written down in Munich in 1945 but written in his head in Auschwitz, is beautiful. Borowski saw Auschwitz as the real world with everything there…. football fields, a factory, concert halls, a brothel. There were the gas chambers but there were also love affairs. Borowski’s poems remain unpublished… but hopefully not for too long.
Children
Adele Zizi as Maria Borowski delivers this powerful moving poem by Lily Brett. Born in 1946, Lily Brett is one of the world’s great poet/novelists. As Marguerite Striar says in Beyond Lament “most poets don’t choose to write about the Holocaust; it chooses them”.
Be Happy
Angi Mariani adapted this from Micheline Maurel’s book ‘Ravensbruck’. Nothing can make up for a single day of suffering that she and others endured behind the wires she writes. But conversely Micheline does not advocate sadness. She cries out to us to be happy.
Auschwitz 1987
Angi Mariani and I visited Auschwitz after we had made the album ‘Songs For The Betrayed World’ with the Life & Death Orchestra. Adam Zych wrote the words and I set them to music. Angi previously gave me the book with his poem in it. Adam was closely involved with the Auschwitz Museum and we went there and met him which led to the creation of our opera ‘This Way For The Gas Ladies and Gentlemen’. (Bill Smith)
Credits
As you can see, many people and communities participated in this people’s opera about Auschwitz and Darfur, which was performed in Brighton at Komedia and then again in Brighton Festival and Fringe at Spiegeltent on Old Steine. The Rainbow Chorus, Brighton Youth Orchestra with Andrew Sherwood conducting.
On the album, recorded at Church Road Studios, and in the opera working with The Life and Death Orchestra, with great musicians like Nick Pynn, Catherine Black, Tom Arnold, Marjorie Ashenden, Bob Taylor, Dave Trigwell, Mark Allen, Jo Hinchliff, Chris Page, Eddie Myer, Jo Watson, Julian Tardo, Herbie Flowers and Ian Hamer, was an experience I will never forget.
Similarly working with the orchestrator Dominic Nunns and the singer/actors Guy Picot, Jon Oliver Page, Kerri McLean, Seth Morgan, Adele Zizi, Jenny James and Nick Bartlett.