But the Giraffe Brundibar Author:Tony Kushner "Exultant. . . . As the unlikely survival of this opera suggests, the joy and beauty that music and art express can outlast evil even when they cannot defeat it."?The New York Times "It's a tale of the outrage and rebellion of even the natural world of dogs, cats, and sparrows against things as unnatural as injustice and poverty and the sufferin... more »g of children. It's a story of good defeating evil. But its history is haunted by a single instance of evil defeating good."? Tony Kushner Tony Kushner provides a new English libretto, and Maurice Sendak the design, for this Czech opera?a beautiful children's story extolling courage in the face of tyranny?that was first performed in a concentration camp. Just before the opera's 1942 premiere, its composer Hans Krasa was arrested and sent to Theresienstadt, or Terezín, a "model ghetto" that was in reality a death camp. After a copy of the score was smuggled in, Krasa took advantage of the large number of talented instrumentalists there to stage the opera with imprisoned children. Performed fifty-five times at Terezín, Brundibar is published here with Kushner's short play But the Giraffe, a sensitively drawn historical backdrop. Tony Kushner's plays include Angels in America, Homebody/Kabul, A Bright Room Called Day, Slavs! and the book and lyrics for Caroline, or Change. Maurice Sendak is the author of over a hundred children's books, including Where the Wild Things Are.« less