Temple Emanu-El, Dallas Symphony Orchestra to present concert

By Deb Silverthorn

The instruments, voices and visuals of “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín” will chill, honor and share the power of music beginning at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

The presentation on Yom HaShoah and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) commemorates the story of the prisoners who performed Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem” between 1942 and 1944.

The concert-drama, about Jewish prisoners in World War II, is a multimedia performance with videos and testimonies of Terezín choir members. It will be conducted by Temple Emanu-El member Benjamin Loeb and narrated by Defiant Requiem Foundation Founder and President Murry Sidlin and Temple Emanu-El Senior Cantor Vicky Glikin. The program will feature the Temple Emanu-El Choir; the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; and guest soloists Allison Charney, Scott Conner, Eleni Matos and Roy Cornelius Smith. Cantor Leslie Niren and Cantor Hallie Weiner will also participate.

“I’m humbled to share the stage with the esteemed maestro who has dedicated his life to teaching about the powerful story of Jewish cultural resistance at Terezín,” Glikin said of Sidlin. He created the program, which marks its 64th presentation with itsDallas premiere. Traversing the globe, it has been performed in Berlin and Jerusalem as well as three times at Terezín, among other locations.

“I am inspired by the prisoners’ strength in upholding their humanity by their urge to create beauty amid utter degradation and their courage to speak truth to power.” Glikin added.

Rafael Schächter, a renowned conductor before the war and a prisoner at Terezín, created the musical refuge for his fellow inmates after finding a piano in a barracks basement. In the late nights they would gather and sing Czech popular songs, then “The Bartered Bride” by Bedřich Smetana. Verdi’s “Requiem” was performed 16 times — 15 for Jewish prisoners and just once for SS officials. In the audience of that performance were Adolf Eichmann and an International Red Cross delegation for which Schächter told his choristers, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.”

While “Requiem” was written from Roman Catholic liturgy as a mass to honor the dead, Sidlin said that when he met with Archbishop of New York Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Dolan remarked that “the words originated from the Psalms. The choir didn’t take the words; they just took back what was theirs.”

“This hour and a half or so shortened the time we had for brooding about our new lifestyle,” said choir member and “Defiant Requiem” documentary participant, Edgar Krasa, now of blessed memory. “It did more; the next day at work we already occupied our minds looking forward to the evening to sing again.”

“You forget where you are, you forget your surroundings, it’s as though I was in a concert hall,” said Krasa’s wife Hana, of blessed memory, in her documentary testimony. “You carry the songs which we all knew, you carry this with you in your mind and it was part of the mechanism to help you to cope.”

Loeb, one of five conductors who studied under Sidlin and who is licensed by The Defiant Requiem Foundation to conduct the program, is a St. Mark’s School of Texas graduate, the son of Gail and the late Dr. Peter Loeb and the brother of Lisa (Roey Hershkovitz) and Debbie (Neil) Keon.

After living outside Dallas since 1984, Loeb returned in 2020 with his wife Dr. Quyen Nguyen and their children Anna Sofia, Lulu and Taco, making Plano their home. Raised at Temple Emanu-El, from the time he was 8 years old Loeb would attend the symphony with his Nana, Anne Barzune. Named after a grandfather he never knew, Benjamin Barzune, Loeb introduced the idea of a “Defiant Requiem” presentation to Glikin.

“Being back, this is huge and a full-circle moment. Conducting one of the biggest pieces in classic repertoire, with the DSO at the Meyerson? It’s a dream come true,” said Loeb, who began playing piano before he was 2 years old and who has conducted around the world, including three times just a few miles from the Terezín camp.

“Cantor Glikin is wonderful, she’s knowledgeable, she has a gorgeous voice and she’s authentic. Chris is so professional and Temple’s choir is extremely dedicated,” Loeb said. “Bringing this together has been very special on many levels.”

Moved to honor the memory of those who perished, as well as those who survived despite the odds by narrating their words, Glikin is from Kyiv, close to Babyn Yar. Many of her extended family members were killed when more than 33,000 Jews were murdered in a two-day massacre in September 1941. As a young girl, before immigrating to the United States at 13, Glikin traveled from Kyiv throughout Europe, performing with the Children’s Jewish Musical Theater.

“I’m proud that we are facilitating an experience that will provide attendees from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to learn about the Jewish people, our history and our values,” she said. Having officiated at the b’nai mitzvah of two of Loeb’s children, Glikin says having their father conducting the piece “helps make the program uniquely homegrown.

“This is a story of the power of music, of hope and of Jewish pride. This is a story that more people need to know,” Glikin added.

With Loeb conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Glikin and Sidlin serving as the program’s narrators, the Temple Emanu-El choir will perform under the direction of Temple’s choir director, Chris Crook. Working on the piece for many months, the choir presented a preview during learning sessions on Yom Kippur last fall and again as part of a “Behind the Curtain” concert earlier this year.

“Our choir members have been working extremely hard on learning and internalizing the complex music. I think each of them has grown as a musician,” said Glikin. “They’re honored to participate and to lend their voices in witness to the experience of those who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and in memory of those who perished.

“I’m proud of Temple Emanu-El’s role in bringing this production. Its scale is such a tremendous undertaking,” she continued. “This production is much bigger than any single organization. We’ve seen great support from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum and numerous partners from throughout the community.”

Alexandra Zapruder — whose family have been longtime members of Temple Emanu-El and where her father Henry, of blessed memory, celebrated his bar mitzvah — is the education director at The Defiant Requiem Foundation. In January, she spoke about the power of art and the human spirit in the face of adversity when presenting a screening of the “Defiant Requiem” documentary at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. 

For each of the entities and individuals participating in the April 23 event, the preparation, the intention and the spirit of their participation is wrapped in honor, with Sidlin’s voice representing them all.

“The Jewish prisoners were surrounded on an hourly basis by man’s worst, and these Jewish prisoners and the creative people there were determined to remind everyone of man’s best,” said Sidlin.

For more information, to purchase tickets or sponsor the event, visit qrco.de/DRtickets.