Through 1/13: Jazz Opera at Museum of Jewish Heritage

New York City Opera (under the direction of Michael Capasso, General Director) will produce the world premiere of the award-winning jazz composer/pianist Ted Rosenthal’s DEAR ERICH. This new jazz opera, to be co-produced with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Pl., will open Wednesday, January 9 and will play four performances only through Sunday, January 13.

DEAR ERICH, the true story of tragedy, love, and redemption, will be directed by Mikhaela Mahony, with a libretto by Lesley Rosenthal and Ted Rosenthal, and additional lyrics by Barry Singer, E.M. Lewis, Edward Einhorn, and will feature a cast of nine headed by Jessica Tyler Wright, Glenn Seven Allen, Rachel Zatcoff, and Peter Kendall Clark.

Ted Rosenthal was inspired to write DEAR ERICH when he discovered over 200 letters written in Germany between 1938 and 1941 by his grandmother, Herta Rosenthal, to his father, Erich, a Jewish scholar who escaped to the United States. Set in wartime Germany and Chicago, Rosenthal, a winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, employs the musical idioms of the 1930’s and 40’s to create this poignant retelling of his own family history - the heartbreaking story of a family’s dual fates – a son’s journey and new life in the New World, and the cruel demise of his family at the hands of the Nazis which he was powerless to stop.

DEAR ERICH will feature set design by John Farrell, costume design by Janet O’Neill, and lighting design by Susan Roth.

DEAR ERICH will be performed Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30pm (opening night); Thursday, January 10 and Saturday, January 12 at 7:30pm; and Sunday, January 13 at 1pm. Tickets, starting at $25, are available at www.nytf.org.