The setting
Germany 1933: a beautiful spring marks Hitler’s 100th day in power. His regime already is working through its kill list. Its targets include trade unions and German Communists. But the bulls-eye is Jews -- starting with cultural icons like conductors Otto Klemperer in Berlin and Bruno Walter at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra. Brown-shirts agitate everywhere, on streets and in audiences. Concert halls connected with Jewish conductors are padlocked or vandalized. Jewish musicians are attacked in print, even by mainstream newspapers that seek to please the new government. Klemperer and Walter leave Germany.
In Berlin a group of dismissed Jews petitions for a separate
self-supporting organization that will allow unemployed Jewish artists
to perform for Jewish-only audiences. The “Culture-League of
German Jews” -- Kulturbund Deutscher Juden -- is approved. By 1935 it's the sole public access to culture
for Jews in Germany. Goebbels’ Ministry of Enlightenment oversees its administration,
performers, audience and programs. Certain
‘German’ composers -- Wagner, Strauss, even Beethoven -- soon are off limits. Still, dozens of Kulturbund chapters form, including Leipzig's. Its early members include three young Jewish
concert pianists and their music-loving businessman husbands.
The performance
The story
Two Pianos highlights the tenacity, passion and devotion to craft shared by Anna and Halina. As talented student “alien residents” in Leipzig they mastered new languages and cultures. As young Jewish mothers they maintained professional careers while juggling child-care and shrinking life-choices. As naturalized American citizens, teachers and performers Halina (1908-1999), Anna (1908-2003) and Tanya (1907-1988) shared their art while celebrating life. As the pianists who portray them in Two Pianos note in the Premiere highlights video, their story "reminds people that they need to appreciate being a human being and being allowed to breathe and lead a dignified life . . . Everyone has something that helps him or her to go through everything. In our case it’s music. In somebody else’s case, it could be literature, art, whatever. . . .We need to know what keeps us alive."
Next steps and events
After the Philadelphia premiere the Levins formed the arts/education company Papers Please Inc. to bring Two Pianos to new audiences in the U.S. and abroad.
In June 2019 Two Pianos events were performed in Leipzig Germany as part of the city's 2019 "Schalom" week activities -- a bi-annual welcome to former Leipzig residents and their descendants to return to the city.
The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University/Newark sponsored the Two Pianos performance, exhibit, Q & A and reception event held on 27 October 2019 at the Paul Robeson Campus Center. Please click here for additional information.
The Two Pianos Project is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. This relationship allows Papers Please Inc. to seek contributions for the performances in Leipzig Germany and Rutgers University/ Newark. Contributions
for the charitable purposes of the Two Pianos Project must be made
payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Contributions may be made on-line by clicking this link.