Dear Erich: A Jazz Opera by Ted Rosenthal

Opera Co-sponsored by American Society for Jewish Music, American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute, YIVO Institute, and Yeshiva University Museum General: $15 Members/seniors/students: $10 At the door: $18

In Commemoration of Yom HaShoah
Set in wartime Germany and Chicago, ​
a story of tragedy, love and redemption

Dear Erich is inspired by 200 newly discovered letters written in Germany between 1938 and 1941 by Herta Rosenthal to her son Erich, the composer's father. Dear Erich tells a refugee story for our times. How can a family cope as the walls of their nation's hatred close in around them? For those who escape, what lies ahead?  

Erich, a Jewish academic, escaped Nazi Germany to the U.S. shortly before Kristallnacht. The opera tells the story of a family's dual fates. Erich's journey to a new life in the new world – his studies, jazz and love –  while the situation deteriorates in Germany and his family ultimately meets their cruel demise at the hands of the Nazis. Frustrated and powerless to help them emigrate, Erich must live with deep survivor guilt which affects him in his relationships with his wife and children.

The opera's scenes of immigration and refugees in crisis raise moral dilemmas that resound to this day. Finally, Dear Erich stands for the power of remembrance, not just to honor the past but also to root us in the present and chart our future.