About the work
“Lass uns die Welt vergessen. Volksoper 1938” (Let Us Forget the World) is a play with music by the Dutch director and writer Theu Boermans, who wrote the text and libretto, and the composer and conductor Keren Kagarlitsky. It is based on the book “Ihre Dienste werden nicht mehr benötigt” (2018) by the historian Marie-Theres Arnbom about the expulsion of Jewish artists from the Volksoper. It premiered on 14 December 2023 for the 125th anniversary of the Volksoper Wien, directed by Boermans.
Plot
In early 1938 the Volksoper company is rehearsing the operetta “Gruß und Kuß aus der Wachau” by Jara Beneš, the house’s last premiere before Austria’s annexation. During rehearsals the pressure on the Jewish members of the company grows; after the Nazi takeover they are dismissed and driven out. At the end the librettist Hugo Wiener sits at the piano in exile in Bogotá.
Cultural significance
Since the original score of the Beneš operetta is lost, Kagarlitsky reorchestrated the surviving piano score and added music by Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg and Viktor Ullmann. Critics, including the Kleine Zeitung, Falter and FAZ, received the piece very positively and also read it as a warning against right-wing populism; in 2024 the production was nominated for a special prize of the Nestroy Theatre Award.