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by Grigori Frid, directed by Edward Franko

TrypTych, Leah Posluns Theatre, Toronto

March 10-11, 2004

On March 10, 2004, TrypTych Productions presented the Canadian premiere of Russian composer Grigori Frid’s opera The Diary of Anne Frank.  Frid (born 1915) began writing the opera immediately after reading Frank’s diary in 1969.  It’s first performance was in 1972.  It is a powerful work that deserves to be more widely heard in Canada.

The 75-minute one-person opera, here sung in English, consists of 21 well-chosen excerpts from the diary.  Because of Frid’s remarkably perceptive word-setting, the opera captures the essential inwardness of the diary and of Anne’s spiritual development better than many multi-character adaptations.  While Frid uses tone rows in Berg’s most lyrical style, the heritage of Prokofiev and Shostakovich is evident in the strong rhythms that mark each section.  The march beat that increasingly dominates the work at first represents Anne’s fear of the enemy but in a brilliant move gradually becomes aligned with Anne’s own courage in face of death.

Soprano Shoshana Friedman met the vocal and dramatic demands of playing the many moods of this reflective 13-year-old girl with winning naturalness.  Her voice displayed a combination of fragility and resilience ideal for this character.  Edward Franko’s insightful direction gave dramatic shape to Anne’s inner thoughts.  William Shookhoff conducted Ensemble TrypTych in Frid’s own nine-instrument reduction of the score with precision and consistently brought out the work’s stark beauty.  Anne Frank was preceded by contralto Nina Scott-Stoddart’s sensitively characterized performance of Srul Irving Glick’s song cycle I Never Saw Another Butterfly based on poems written by children interned in Terezin. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Opera Canada 2004-06-22.

Photo: Shoshana Friedman as Anne Frank. ©2004 Edward Franko.