Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank - Musiktheater von Grigori Frid

In the organizer's words:

Music theater in two acts by Grigori Frid

German text by Ulrike Patow

Program for the commemorative event series 80 years of the end of the war and liberation Düsseldorf remembers

"When the war is over, it may no longer sound credible to tell how our lives were here" (Anne Frank)

At the end of the 1960s, the Russian-Jewish composer Grigori Frid depicted the fate of Anne Frank in his approximately one-hour monodramatic opera, which takes up the most important passages from the diary in 21 scenes. In addition to the literary power of the original, Frid's atonal music creates an atmosphere that expresses the tragedy of the events.

Beyond a naturalistic aesthetic, director Andreas Durban's production focuses on "time", which took on a different meaning for Anne in the last years of her life.

Soprano Andrea Graff studied artistic singing (with Prof. Kai Wessel) with a focus on music theater and musicology at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. She completed both master's degrees with top marks and works as a freelance singer and music dramaturge. Andrea Graff is a multiple national prizewinner at the Jugend musiziert competition, a special prizewinner at the Rhine-Ruhr International Song Duo Competition and co-winner of the "KlassikRein" prize, and has already appeared in various opera roles in her field. She has a close relationship with the director Andreas Durban, under whose direction she has sung the leading roles in several world premieres. She is also a passionate Lied singer and is very active in church music.

The pianist Sophie Sczepanek has Silesian-Korean roots and has lived in Düsseldorf since 2017. She holds a master's degree with distinction in Lied accompaniment from Prof. Xaver Poncette and a diploma in instrumental pedagogy for piano from Prof. Till Engel and Wolfgang Klein-Richter. She studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts and the Pôle Supérieur Paris Boulogne-Billancourt. Sophie Sczepanek performs as a song pianist in the classical field (e.g. Philharmonie Essen, WDR3 Cologne, Cité de la Musique Paris), but is also part of the Düsseldorf chanson duo La Petite Mort (e.g. MTV Music Week, Night of the Museums).
She is also active in music education and as a piano teacher, together with her pedagogical companion dog Theodore. Her first CD with song cycles by Beethoven, Schumann and Ravel, which she recorded together with baritone Joel Urch, will be released in fall 2023.

Andreas Durban is an actor, director and lecturer. He began his training as an actor in 1984 at the "Der Keller" theater school in Cologne, which he completed in 1987 with the state stage maturity examination. This was followed by engagements at the Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord in Wilhelmshaven, the Stadttheater Heidelberg, the Schauspielhaus Bonn and the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. He has also appeared in film and television productions. He has also worked as a narrator in various radio play productions: since 1990 at Süddeutscher Rundfunk and since 1998 at Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Since 1998, Andreas Durban has been a lecturer in basic drama and aria performance at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. Andreas Durban directs, writes libretti for operas and conducts seminars and coaching sessions on rhetoric, speaking technique and performance skills. In 2008 he founded the Cologne Literary Opera.

• ANNE FRANK: Andrea Graff
• PLAYER: Sophie Sczepanek
• DESCRIPTION: Andreas Durban

Playing time: approx. 70 minutes

Age recommendation: from approx. 13 years