I used the Alta Vista search engine to find mention of Brundibar on the
Internet.  It was performed in September 1996 by the students of the
Hamburg Christianeum Gymnasium.  The review following is condensed and
translated from the reviews by two 5th-grade teachers at the school,
as reported at

    http://www.hh.schule.de/christianeum/brundi.htm


   " ... Actually, I had imagined the opera much sadder than it really
was.  However, the story of Brundibar is a fairy tale, in which the
children Pepicek and Aninka see the organ grinder man, who always plays
the same song on the organ and gets plenty of cash. They say to
themselves, 'Perhaps if we sing something we can get a little cash
too.'

   "Brundibar, the organ grinder man, chases away the two.  They are
scoffed and laughed at by the hairdresser, by the baker, by the iceman
and by the milkman.   Ultimately they defeat the dictator Brundibar
with the help of the animals (sparrow, dog and cat) who gather all the
town children in the market place to sing and overpower the sound of
the evil Brundibar.  The accompanying music is also mostly merry.

   "But there was not only happiness in this piece.  On the stage was
an enormous heap of tattered shoes, which clearly signified how many
people had died in the concentration camp.  I thought it particularly
sad when a black-veiled woman went in the night to the shoe-pile, and
picked up and squeezed a child's shoe.

   "At the end of the opera it became very merry, because all the choir
children waved motley-colored rags in the finale.  It's unfortunate
that none of the children from the Ghetto Theresienstadt could see this
performance."


I asked Philippe Rouille if the music of Brundibar exists on music
roll.  He replied:

> Not yet; it seems difficult to find the sheet music.  However,
> Pierre Charial, our renowned noteur, should soon see Brundibar,
> and I am sure that he will be tempted to create a music-book.

Robbie Rhodes