Synagogue List 52 Torah Portion 53 Celebrating Jewish Spirit WSU professor who spurred re-staging of epic "The Eternal Road" speaks about its performance in German city. SHARON LUCKERMAN Staff Writer T he German city of Chemnitz chose an unusual way to honor its Jewish citi- zens killed during the Holocaust as well as thoseewho had escaped. In 1999, the city re-staged what has been called a major 20th-century work, the musical drama The Eternal Road. This lavish Biblical pag- eant — with a 135-member cast, a full orchestra and three choruses — celebrates the spirit of the Jewish people. The Eternal Road hasn't been performed since its first run on Broadway in 1937, when it opened to much acclaim. Even Catholics were given special permission by the New York Archbishop to attend performances during Lent. The musical drama was written and produced by leading talents in the world of theater and music at the time — Kurt Weill, legendary corn- poser of The Threepenny Opera; Meyer Weisgal, who later became president of Israel's Weizmann Institute; Franz Werfel and Max Reinhardt. All were Jewish; three escaped the Nazis. Through their work, they hoped to make a counterstate- ment against Hitler -and- show the indomitable spirit of Judaism. Reviving this epic musical has been a driving passion for Guy Stern of West Bloomfield, a Wayne State University distinguished professor of German. As secretary of the Kurt Weill Society in New York City, Stern pushed for years to have the society support a production of The Eternal Road. Though the cost was immense and parts of the score had to be found and pieced together, Stern's determination paid off when the people of Chemnitz stepped forward. Stern will discuss and show a documentary - film, The Eternal Road: An Encounter with the Past, at 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 18, at the Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham. The event is spon- sored by the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at WSU in Detroit. "The film is the result of a remarkable piece of luck," says Stern, who is the new director of the Institute of the Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, opening this spring. The re-staging of The Eternal Road coincided with the 60-year reunion of Jews from Chemnitz now living in other countries, he says. One of the " In this scene from the original production of "The Eternal Road," an Egyptian overseer, center, kills a Jewish slave. survivors was accompanied to the reunion by his son, Los Angeles filmmaker Ron Frank. While filming his 'father's reunion, Frank learned about the revival of the epic musical and began filming it. He also found rare homemade movies of Jewish life in Chemnitz before the war that he includes in the film, along with newsreel footage of the original production. Stern, too, has a special relationship to this project. As a teacher in the early 1950s at New York City's Columbia University, Stern began his long friendship with Kurt Weill's widow, international- ly known performer Lotte Lenya. It was pure chutzpah that the young Stern wrote to Lenya asking for an unpublished letter written by Weill for a German textbook he and a friend were writing. The teachers already had letters in German by a young Franklin Roosevelt, Mark Twain and Mozart. But Stern wanted a letter by a modern composer and went for the best-known German composer at that time. Ten days later, a thick packet arrived with copies of some of the most relevant correspon- dence between the famous composer and his wife on the genesis of The Eternal Road, says Stern, whose friendship with Lenya continued until her death in 1981. Stern also has an intimate connection to the play's story. Born in Germany, he says he was very adjusted to his German surroundings and heritage until 1933, with its shocking anti-Jewish out- breaks. Stern was sent to live with relatives in the United States and never saw his German family JEWISH SPIRIT on page 54 AIN 1/16 2004 51