Alma Rosé

ABOUT THE CONCERT

Alma Rosé hailed from a fam­ous Vi­en­nese fam­ily of mu­si­cians. Her fath­er was an out­stand­ing vi­ol­in­ist and her moth­er the sis­ter of one of Aus­tria’s most ac­claimed com­posers, Gust­av Mahler. She took up the vi­ol­in at a young age and later would go on to per­form with her fath­er. But her mu­sic­al tal­ents and am­bi­tions stretched bey­ond play­ing the vi­ol­in. She led Vi­enna’s pop­u­lar women’s or­ches­tra the Wien­er Walzermädeln which played a rep­er­toire of clas­sic music and oper­et­tas. How­ever her ca­reer was then brought to an ab­rupt halt by the rise of Nazism in Europe. Owing to her Jew­ish roots she had to flee to the Neth­er­lands but it wasn’t ex­actly safe for her there either. On try­ing to pro­cure a fake pass­port to Switzer­land she was de­tained and de­por­ted to a con­cen­tra­tion camp.

She didn’t give up on her music how­ever. In Aus­chwitz, she be­came the con­duct­or of the women's pris­on band and was gradu­ally able to re­cruit ex­per­i­enced play­ers into the or­ches­tra, mainly made up of Jew­ish women pris­on­ers. The or­ches­tra was re­quired to per­form with ab­so­lute pre­ci­sion and ac­cur­acy, not only on the train plat­form when new trans­ports ar­rived, but also at parties or­gan­ised for the pris­on guards. As or­ches­tra mem­ber, the cel­list Anita Laser-​Wallfisch, re­called, "Alma knew only too well that if she didn’t form a high cal­ibre band, we would all be sent to the gas cham­bers."

Alma sur­vived just one year in the camp, dying at just 37 years of age.

The life of the su­perb vi­ol­in­ist Alma Rosé will be re­membered on 22nd June 2023 in a mono­drama by the Pol­ish au­thor Mari­usz Urbanek, whose story is based on real events. The ladies' string quar­tet will per­form com­pos­i­tions by F. Kre­isler, J. Strauss, A Dvořák, F Schubert, J. Brahms and G. Puccini. The main prot­ag­on­ist will be played by Sarah Haváčová.

The ladies' string quartet will perform compositions by F. Kreisler, J. Strauss, A Dvořák, F Schubert, J. Brahms and G. Puccini. The main character will be played by Sarah Haváčová.

Programme

Alma Rosé monodrama with music by the authors: F. Kreisler, J. Strauss, A. 

Dvořák, F. Schubert, J. Brahms and G. Puccini.

Performers

Sarah Haváčová, Alma Rosé

Women's String Quartet
- Hana Dostálová Roušarová, violin
- Monika Urbanová / Gabriela Kubátová, violin
- Dagmar Mašková, viola
- Vladimíra Sanvito, cello

Mariusz Urbanek, author
Directed, translated and adapted by Olga Strusková