The 13-year-old Anne Frank is hiding with her family in a house in Amsterdam from July 1942 until their arrest in August 1944. She describes the people she sees, her different moods, and her emotions in her diary, telling of her pleasure at a birthday gift, or the sight of blue sky from her window, or her awakening attraction for Peter, but also her fear and loneliness.
Description
Frid wrote his own libretto for the work, structuring the original texts to provide a rich and varied portrait of Anne and the people around her in 21 brief scenes. The opera lasts one hour.[1][2]
Scenes
Prelude
Birthday
School
Conversation with Father
Summons to the Gestapo
The Hiding Place / The Bell Tower West
At the Little Window
I Was Told
Despair
Memory
Dream
Interlude
Duet of Mr and Mrs Van Daan
Thieves
Recitative
I Think of Peter
On the Russian Front
Razzia
Loneliness
Passacaglia
Finale
The opera, composed in 1968, was first performed with piano accompaniment at the All-Union House of Composers in Moscow on either 17 or 18 May 1972.[1][2]
Reception
The opera's intimate nature and chamber orchestra scale means that it works well in small spaces and using small forces. In summer 2012, Operabase listed it as the most frequently staged lyric work by a living composer over the previous five years.[3]
Opera Performances: American-Armenian Soprano Ani Maldjian performed the title role in the US Premiere. Other premieres performed by her include Ireland, France and Belgium.
Discography
Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (sung in German) Sandra Schwarzhaupt, soprano, Emsland Ensemble, Hans Erik Deckert, Profil PH04044,
