Calisto y Melibea: «Ilusión» (cómica) de Tony Kushner

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The multiple mobilities of civil rights in Jeanine Tesori’s Violet and Caroline, or Change

This article centres on Jeanine Tesori’s Violet (book and lyrics by Brian Crawley) and Caroline, or Change (book and lyrics by Tony Kushner), both of which are set in the American south during a crucial period in American history running between the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both works musically capture the imaginative traditions of the American south through gospel, country, Motown, and blues in order to detail the complex negotiations of the titular female protagonists through challenges of isolation, entrapment and liberation in the months following Kennedy's assassination. This article argues that the promise and affordance of mobility within these musicals are rooted in an uncanny spiritual fervour expressed by Violet and Caroline, both of whom have defined a distinctive, and, as will be recognized by each musical’s conclusion, mistaken theology of personal devotion and faith that runs precisely counter to the liberating potentials in the world around them.

Ethnography and the empathic imperative: Negotiating histories in the Sydney Brundibár Project

The children’s opera Brundibár received fame through performances by Jewish children in the Theresienstadt ghetto from 1943 to 1944. Since its revival in the 1970s, the work has been performed around the world in multiple languages and has been transformed into a best-selling book by Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak. Used as a tool for Holocaust education, many modern productions emphasize a narrative of cultural resistance as a way of reading the work, transforming Brundibár’s Brechtian agitprop plot of collective action profoundly. In the Sydney production of 2014, a decision was made to stay faithful to the original motives of the composer and librettist, and the production was shaped by ethnographic testimony of those who had witnessed the original performances. This article examines how the historical narrative interacts with the ethnographic and personal encounters in the interpretation and realization of this work. Burdened by a responsibility to historical context, how does ethnography assist in bringing nuance and multi-vocality? In what way does an empathic imperative inform these processes?