George Whyte

The title of this article is ambiguous. For more people with a similar name, see George White .

George Whyte (2009)

George R. Whyte (born July 11, 1933 in Budapest , † August 31, 2012 in London ) was a Hungarian- British writer , composer , playwright and art collector .

Life

The Briton with a Hungarian-Jewish background studied at the universities of London and Paris and received his musical training from Francesco Ticiatti (composition) and Paul Lichtenstern (piano). Whyte was significantly shaped in his work and in his work by the consequences of the Holocaust . The experience of the loss of 35 family members in Auschwitz led to his anti-racist focus of work, which also includes dealing with anti-Semitism .

George Whyte uses his in-depth knowledge and research results on the subject of the Dreyfus Affair time and again in his dramatic and literary works. Whyte is increasingly focused on the task of text and music, which he sees in the fight against social injustice, especially racism. In his Dreyfus Trilogy , created in 1994 for the 100th anniversary of the Dreyfus Affair and premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin under the direction of Götz Friedrich , George Whyte makes extensive use of archive material and in doing so develops a powerful dramatic style, Götz Friedrich referred to as a "protocol for music theater" in which the drama is reinforced by contrasting texts. They are sung and declaimed several times and confront the listener with an escalation of the moral conflict.

As a cultural highlight of the Czech Presidency of the European Union , the National Theater in Prague presented the world premiere of Golem 13 in June 2009 , a “cabbalistic drama” in 2 acts by George Whyte set by the Israeli composer Noam Sheriff (student of Boris Blacher ). The premiere commemorated the 400th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Löw, also known as Maharal , the great sage and rabbi of Prague, who is said to have created the Golem in the 16th century to protect the Jews from the ghetto. George Whyte expands the Jewish myth in general and dares to do the balancing act between the past and the future. The first act of the piece takes place in the 16th century, the second act in the future, 500 years later, when the threatened Jewry created Golem 13 to ward off existential danger. In this seminal work, a superhuman being appears for the first time on the opera stage, created from Kabbalistic spirituality and advanced technology, which is ultimately significant for all of humanity.

Whyte has worked repeatedly with other composers and artistic talents and builds his work in such a way that it is equally usable for the stage, television and radio. His commitment to the management of cultural events and his works have made an important contribution to keeping alive the memory of the injustice inflicted on the Jewish people.

George Whyte was among other things chairman of the British National Export Council for Arts (1967-1973), founding member of the international committee of the Artur Rubinstein Piano Competition (1976-1988) and chairman of the Royal Opera House - 'The Holocaust A Commemoration in Music' (1987 / 88). Whyte has been chairman of the cultural event Remembering for the Future (London) since 1988 . His more than two decades of research into the Dreyfus Affair make him an internationally recognized expert on the subject. Since 1998 he has also been chairman of the Dreyfus Society for Human Rights (London and Bonn).

The works of George Whyte were a. a. Published by Palgrave Macmillan (UK and USA), Inter Nationes and Artial and Coda Editions and distributed by Boosey & Hawkes Bote and Bock Berlin. The stage works were premiered by the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the Bonn Opera, the Basel Theater , the New York City Opera, the Zurich Opera House , the Jewish Museum Berlin and the National Theater in Prague. Many radio and television companies have broadcast George Whyte's works, including Arte, WDR, Channel 4, CBS, France Culture, BBC, Sweden STV1, Slovenia RTV, SLO; Finland YLE and Hungary MTV.

Works

Monographs

• Set for Enterprise , study for the Royal Opera House, London 1986.
• The Dreyfus Centenary Bulletin , The Dreyfus Centenary Committee, London / Bonn 1994.
• Oper am Scheideweg Dreyfus The Affair - A Protocol for the Music Theater , Deutsche Oper Berlin Yearbook, pp. 167–176, 1994.
• L'Affaire en Chansons , Dictionnaire de l'Affaire Dreyfus de A to Z, Flammarion, 1994; Muse d'histoire Contemporaine - BDIC Paris 1994.
• Le Prix d´Illusion , Revue Juive, Geneva, June 2, 1995.
• Un bilan du centenaire de l'Affaire Dreyfus , Cahier Jean Jaurès, Paris, 1995.
• The Accused- The Dreyfus Trilogy , Secolo Verlag / Inter Nationes Bonn, 1996, ISBN 3-929979-28-4 .
• From Berlin to Broadway or The Dreyfus Affair as a Rorschach Test , Die Welt, Berlin December 21, 1996.
• The Dreyfus Affair - A Chronological History , Palgrave Macmillan, London and New York, 2006, ISBN 978-0-230-20285-6 .
• Dreyfus Intime , Artial 2008 (in English, German, French, Hebrew, Hungarian). In Czech, Czech Theater Institute, translations by the Goethe Institute.
• Admission is not acceptance - Reflections on the Dreyfus Affair , Antisemitism, London Valentine Mitchell, 2007; Paris: French, Edition Le Manuscript / Unesco 2008; Spanish: Buenos Aires Lilmod 2009; Russian: Moscow Xonokoct, 2010.
• The Dreyfus Affair - The Power of Prejudice , translation from English by Oliver Mallick, foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60218-8 .
• The Dreyfus Affair - A Trilogy of Plays , Oberon Books, London, January 2011.

Stage, television and radio

World premiere The Dreyfus Affair , Zola sings J´accuse (1994) by Sarah Nathan-Davis

• 'AJIOM / Captain Dreyfus - A Jew in our midst', musical in 2 acts, 1989.
• 'The Dreyfus Trilogy' (in collaboration with Jost Meier, Alfred Schnittke and Luciano Berio) includes.

• 'Dreyfus - The Affair', opera in two acts, Deutsche Oper Berlin, May 8, 1994; Theater Basel, October 16, 1994.
• 'The Dreyfus Affair', New York City Opera, April 2, 1996.
• 'Dreyfus-J'Accuse', dance drama, Opera of the City of Bonn, September 4, 1994; Television: Sweden STV1, Slovenia RTV, SLO, Finland YLE.
• 'Zorn und Schande', musical satire, Arte, April 1994; 'Rage et Outrage', Arte, April 1994; 'Rage and Outrage', Channel 4, May 1994.

• 'J'Accuse' traveling exhibition, curator Sarah Nathan-Davis, Berlin, Basel, New York 1994–1996.
• 'My burning Protest', monologue for speaker and percussion, 1996.
• 'Dreyfus in Opera and Ballet / The Odyssey of George Whyte', German / English, September 1995, WDR, Sweden STV1, Hungary MTV and Finland YLE.
• 'J'Accuse', radio documentary, Canadian Broadcasting Service (CBS - October 10, 1998).
• 'Cabaret in Exile', (German and English - with songs from the Second World War ), 2008.
• 'Dreyfus Intime', Zurich Opera House, December 22, 2007, Jewish Museum Berlin, May 6, 2009.
• 'Golem 13', cabalistic drama in two acts (orchestrated by Noam Sheriff), National Theater Prague, June 29, 2009.

Web links

Commons : George Whyte  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files