Sarasota Opera House presents 'Forbidden Music' from Nazi Germany

In the early 1930s, Jewish composers and instrumentalists were an essential element of the cultural life of Germany and Austria.

The rise of anti-Semitim and of the Nazi Party drove the musicians into isolation. Many of them left the country if they could, Finally, their work was banned and the artists themselves were imprisoned or killed.

The rich music of that banished subculture is being resurrected in a concert this weekend at the Sarasota Opera House.

A concert is titled "Forbidden Music -- The Music Banned by the Nazis." It's presented in a partnership between Sarasota Opera and the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, and it offers music by composers who were banned by the Third Reich during World War II. Among the composers whose works will be included are Felix Mendelssohn, George Gershwin and Kurt Weill.

The program will also include narration developed by the Florida Holocaust Museum.

"Forbidden Music" is scheduled in remembrance of Kristallnacht -- the "Night of Broken Glass." On Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, Nazis destroyed Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes and beat or killed many Jews in Germany and Austria.

Details: 8 p.m. Nov. 7, Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. Tickets: $10-$180. Information: 941-328-1300, sarasotaopera.org.

-- Marty Clear

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Sarasota Opera House presents 'Forbidden Music' from Nazi Germany ."