The Mozart Question

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The Holocaust can be defined as the persecution and extermination of around six million Jewish men, women and children. It was not an inevitable occurrence but it did draw on short and longer-term trends in history. Anti-Jewish prejudice had a long history in Europe, but the rise of science in the 18th and 19th centuries saw hostile perceptions about the Jews no longer based just on religion. Instead, new scientific thinking and findings were manipulated to justify hatred of Jews, with the ideas of humans belonging to different races of differing values fighting for survival now used for old prejudices. After the upheaval and bloodshed of World War One, such irrational thoughts became more intense and popular – particularly, but not exclusively, in Germany. When former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo was walking around Venice, two chance encounters resonated in his mind: a street violinist playing late at night to a single enraptured child, then finding himself shortly thereafter in an unknown square that he realised was part of the ghetto from which Jews had been sent to the gas chambers. At the centre of Paolo’s story is his family, and we are given lots of examples of the ups and downs they shared. These aspects of family life are something which many of us can relate to, but they are also things which the victims of the Holocaust would have experienced as well. Whilst we cannot imagine how it felt to have been separated from our families in the way that the victims were, remembering that each person who died in the Holocaust had parents, grandparents, siblings and so forth helps to restore the humanity which was systematically taken from them. It also highlights that although these individuals and their families may have lived in a different time, a different space and had different beliefs, they were not fundamentally that different from you or me. The last weekend of May saw the climax of the 27 th Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, an annual festival for book lovers in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. Amongst the hundreds of events, including talks and discussions from Stephen Fry, Simon Schama and Antonia Fraser, was a dramatic adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s The Mozart Question. Every performance was your best performance, not to please them, but to show them what you could do, to prove to them how good you were despite all they were doing to humiliate you, to destroy you in body and soul.’

Michael travels all over the UK and abroad talking to children and telling his stories and encouraging them to tell theirs. Michael Morpurgo’s stories move from happiness and joy to human catastrophe in an inkling. He tells his tales through the eyes of adults and the eyes of a child – often one and the same, simultaneously. His writing is intensely dramatic, his characters endure extraordinary psychological journeys, and he is unflinching in his pursuit of emotional truth. This, combined with characteristic exuberance and joie de vivre , is what makes his work so theatrical.

About Michael Morpurgo

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Nazis tried to find a ‘territorial solution’ to what they saw as the ‘Jewish Question’. While part of Poland would be incorporated into Germany, another area would be used as a dumping ground for hundreds of thousands of Jews. Before being moved to the edges of the Nazi empire it was decided to cram large numbers of Jews together in towns and cities. As various plans came to nothing, these areas were sealed off from the non-Jewish population and the conditions within the ‘ghettos’ became deadly due to starvation, disease and overcrowding.

A Barn Theatre production in association with Bob & Marianne for Anthology Theatre and The Everyman Theatre Cheltenham. It is a wonderful world out there. There are times when it can be hard to go on believing that. But always believe it, Paolo, because it is true.’ Other examples of the importance of music in ghetto life come from Theresienstadt, where concerts, performances, and operas were a key part of the ghetto’s rich and remarkable cultural fabric. Theresienstadt was a concentration camp and ghetto near Prague in Czechoslovakia. Known in Czech as Terezin, Theresienstadt served as a transit centre for people to be deported elsewhere and as somewhere to house elderly Jews. The town was also frequently used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, with staged photographs and films taken there apparently showing Jews living in peace and comfort. In reality living A reporter sent to Venice to interview world-renowned violinist Paolo Levi is told she can ask him anything about his life and career, but on no account must she ask him the Mozart question. But it is Paulo himself who decides that it is time for the truth to be told... Relevant extracts from The Barber of Seville by Rossini and Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, cleverly subverted and played against a nightmarish recorded tape, as well as the ironically optimistic "Spring" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, are acted as much as played by the multi-talented cast.

Open Library

David Wood, chair of Action for Children’s Arts, said Morpurgo is “one of our greatest storytellers”. Liberation The freeing of those imprisoned under the Nazis by Allied soldiers of Britain, the United States and Soviet Russia. In 1976, Michael and his wife, Clare, started the charity Farms for City Children. They help to run three farms around the country, in Gloucestershire, Pembrokeshire and North Devon. Each farm offers children and teachers from urban primary schools the chance to live and work in the countryside for a week, and gain hands-on experience. For more information about the work of Farms for City Children, please visit www.farmsforcitychildren.co.uk A young journalist, Lesley, was sent to Venice to interview a world-renowned violinist, Paolo Levi, about anything in his career except the Mozart Question.