Pulitzer-nominated For a Look or a Touch at free March concert

Pulitzer-nominated For a Look or a Touch at free March concert

SPARKS OF GLORY MUSICAL WITNESS SERIES: FORBIDDEN! FOR A LOOK OR A TOUCH MARCH 15, 2:30 PM STIMSON AUDITORIUM SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM VOLUNTEER PARK Seattle's Music of Remembrance (MOR) presents the concert-with-commentary Forbidden! on March 15, 2008. This marks only the second performance ever of For a Look or a Touch, which has already garnered a Pulitzer nomination. MOR commissioned the theatrical song cycle from the young American composer Jake Heggie. The third program in MOR's free-to-the-public Sparks of Glory outreach series, Forbidden! begins at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, 2008, at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Introduced by MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller, who is also an international speaker on musicians' spiritual resistance during the Holocaust, the song cycle features performances by rising star baritone Morgan Smith, former opera star Julian Patrick (in an acting role), and some of Seattle's leading chamber musicians. Opera composer Heggie (Dead Man Walking, The End of the Affair) and his librettist Gene Scheer found their story while watching the documentary Paragraph 175, about the Nazi oppression of Germany's homosexual population during the Holocaust. A long covered-over past, it is emerging to public view; the New York Times reported this January the announcement by Germany's minister of culture that construction would soon "begin in Berlin on two monuments: one near the Reichstag, to the murdered Gypsies & and another not far from the Brandenburg Gate, to Gays and Lesbians killed in the Holocaust." "The title For a Look or a Touch is taken from Paragraph 175," Miller said, "where they explain that the laws against homosexuals were so far-reaching, you could literally be arrested 'for a look or a touch.' As part of my talk, I will be showing excerpts from the interview with Gad Beck, who was a teenager during the Holocaust." Beck survived; his lover Manfred Lewin, a Jew, did not. Lewin's journal, which Heggie and Scheer relied on, recounts the events leading up to Lewin being murdered at Auschwitz with his entire family. In For a Look or a Touch, Manfred's ghost (Morgan Smith) visits an elderly Gad Beck (Julian Patrick) to spark his memory of their love. In an interview, Heggie discussed the work's theme: "Manfred's question, 'Do you remember?' established the work's tone. In our story, Gad wants only to forget the horrors he lived through; Manfred's ghost wants only to be remembered, for Gad to treasure their powerful, timeless love." At its world premiere in May 2007, the work, scored for a piano quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano) drew praise for its musical and emotional range, from giddy cabaret and jazz influences, to its stark exposition of the horrors of concentration camp life. Offered free to the public - thanks to sponsorship by Chamber Music America and the National Endowment for the Arts - the performance takes place at the Seattle Asian Art Museum on Capitol Hill, which offers free parking for visitors. A Music of Remembrance press release