Orchestre National de Lille

The Orchestre National de Lille offers us a vibrant plea against antisemitism. Evoking the victims of yesterday, this program reminds us, as Bertolt Brecht wrote, that "the womb is still fertile, from which the foul beast has sprung."

Composed in the aftermath of the war, the cantata A Survivor from Warsaw pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. By composing both the text and music, Schönberg summons the tragic fate of one of his co-religionists who did not have the chance, like him, to escape Nazi barbarism. The part of the narrator, in English, must never be sung, even if it is a solo vocal part, while the choir embodies in turn the Nazis, in German, and the Jews, in Hebrew. Subtitled "Babi Yar," in reference to the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews by the Nazis and their local collaborators in this ravine near Kyiv, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 is also a biting and abrasive denunciation of antisemitism.

Program and cast

Orchestre National de Lille
Philharmonia Chorus
Joshua Weilerstein, conductor
Lambert Wilson, rebec, narrator
Mikhail Petrenko, bass
Gavin Carr, chorus master

Program
Arnold Schönberg
Un Survivant de Varsovie, Op. 46
for narrator, men's choir, and orchestra

Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 13