reading & concert | CAMPAIGNING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS – FIGHTING AGAINST FASCISM

Remembering social scientist and union organizer Käthe Leichter
80 years after her murder by the Nazis | organized by Elysium between two continents

March 16, 7:30 PM 

Reading by Jeannie Im and Gregorij von Leïtis, music performance by soprano Alexis Rodda and pianist Dan Franklin Smith

Concept and Introduction: Michael Lahr von Leïtis

ABOUT KÄTHE LEICHTER

Käthe Leichter with her sons Heinz and Franz

Born in 1895, Käthe Leichter was one of the first Austrian women to get a doctorate in national economics. In addition to her studies, she worked as an educator of working-class children. Those experiences and the revolution after the First World War politicized her. She committed all her energy to the workers’ movement and fought for the emancipation and equal treatment of female workers.

When the Austro-Fascists banned the Social Democratic Party in 1934, Käthe and her husband, the journalist Otto Leichter fled to Switzerland with their two sons Heinz and Franz. After a short while they returned to Austria and fought in the illegal underground union movement. After the so-called Anschluss in March 1938, Otto Leichter immediately fled to Switzerland. Käthe Leichter stayed back in Vienna and was arrested in May 1938. Both sons escaped and reunited with their father in Paris. While Käthe was in prison waiting to be tried, her husband kept a diary writing letters to his wife that were never sent. At the end of 1939, Käthe Leichter was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. On March 17, 1942 she was gassed in the Nazi killing facility Bernburg.

The memoirs and letters of Käthe Leichter and the diary of her husband Otto paint an impressive picture of a courageous woman who remained unbendingly true to her ideals until the end. Käthe’s sister and brother-in-law, the composers Vally and Karl Weigl, found a safe haven in the US. Selections of their music help recreate the cultural atmosphere that shaped the lives of the liberal Jewish communities in Austria and Central Europe until the Holocaust brutally destroyed them.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jeannie Im has been working with Elysium since 2000, singing among others the role of Gloria in the Italian premiere of Krenek’s What Price Confidence at the Rome Opera. A Cum Laude graduate from U.C. Berkeley with an award for Academic and Theatrical Excellence, she obtained an M.A. in Musicology and a Certificate in Early Music Performance from NYU.

As program director of Elysium, Michael Lahr has unearthed numerous works by artists who were persecuted or murdered by the Nazis. Many of these compositions were performed for the first time in Europe and the U.S. He is fellow researcher at the exil.arte Centre of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

Soprano Alexis Rodda attended Princeton University (BA), Mannes College (MM), and currently pursues her PhD at CUNY Graduate Center. She was a 2013 Boston Metropolitan Opera National Council District Winner and Regional Finalist, a 2014 NYC Metropolitan Opera National Council Encouragement Award Winner, and a 2014 and 2018 Elebash Grant Winner among other honors.

Pianist Dan Franklin Smith made his European recital debut in 1997 in Sweden. He has performed at such venues as the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Cleveland Museum’s Distinguished Artist Series, Alice Tully Hall in New York City, and the Savannah Music Festival. He is a member of the Recording Society as well as the American Matthay Association.

Inspired by Erwin Piscator’s political theater, Gregorij von Leïtis, Artistic Director of Elysium, has been working for 50 years as director and educator at various theaters in Europe and the US. He received the New York Theater Club Prize, the Knight’s Cross of the German Order of Merit and the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.

ABOUT ELYSIUM 

Since its founding in New York City in 1983, Elysium has established itself as a vital force at the intersection of American and European cultures and has presented more than 400 events (theater/opera productions, concerts, readings, exhibitions and lectures) in more than 80 cities worldwide. Fostering artistic and creative dialogue and mutual friendship between the United States of America and Europe, and fighting against discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism by means of art are at the heart of Elysium’s mission.

Elysium’s special concern has been to unearth and present works of artists exiled and persecuted by the fascist regimes of the mid twentieth century. Among those artists are composers such as Viktor Ullmann, whose opera The Emperor of Atlantis, composed in the ghetto and concentration camp Theresienstadt, was staged by Elysium in New York, or Ernst Krenek, whose opera What Price Confidence Elysium premiered both in New York and in Italy. The many concerts and musical-literary collages, presenting works of mostly forgotten artists whose works Elysium had found in archives and libraries in the US and Europe, had a trailblazing effect. Other organizations and individuals followed in Elysium’s footsteps.

> More information: elysiumbtc.org | https://www.instagram.com/elysium_1983/ | https://www.facebook.com/elysiumbtc/

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TICKETS

Free admission – RSVP required. To RSVP, please email events@acfny.org with your name and number of tickets you would like to reserve.

COVID-19 INFORMATION

• All visitors will be required to wear a mask covering both mouth and nose at all times within the building.
• In compliance with New York state law, proof of vaccination, as well as an ID., will be required upon entry. Proof of vaccination may include a CDC Vaccination Card, an NYC Vaccination Record, NYC Covid Safe App, Excelsior Pass, or an official immunization record from outside NYC or the U.S., showing proof of receipt of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use or licensed for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or authorized for emergency use by the World Health Organization.

IMAGE CREDITS: Elysium Between Two Continents