Anne Frank

Music by S. Ran, libretto by C. Kondek
Dramaturg Cori Ellison

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

ANNE FRANK

I Still Believe

Eight people hiding in 450 square feet for two years, with one indomitable teenager. Outside—the Holocaust.

Through the pages of her famous diary, Anne chronicled her time in the “Secret Annex” and became a universal symbol of hope and determination. Despite the worst of circumstances, she never lost her exuberance, thirst for life, and belief in humanity.

Based on The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, this powerful recounting features a haunting contemporary score by Pulitzer Prize-winner Shulamit Ran and a dynamic libretto by Charles Kondek.

In English with English supertitles. World premiere.

Created in cooperation with the Anne Frank Fonds, Actors Fund, New Dramatists, and Dramatists Guild Fund. Commissioned by the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater will present the world premiere of the first full-scale production of an opera based on “The Diary of a Young Girl”—also known as “The Diary of Anne Frank”—when “Anne Frank,” by Shulamit Ran on a libretto by Charles Kondek, opens March 3, 2023, at Bloomington’s Musical Arts Center.

The Jacobs School will offer numerous educational events in conjunction with the premiere, including several public-school presentations and “Rediscovering ‘Anne Frank,’” featuring guest speakers and an artist panel on March 2, 2023.

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This spring, Indiana University presents the world premiere of "Anne Frank," an original opera commissioned by the Jacobs School of Music. The opera was conceived, written and composed by a team of renowned Jewish creatives, including Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran, librettist Charles Kondek and conductor Arthur Fagen, professor of music and chair of the Jacobs School of Music Department of Orchestral Conducting.

For Fagen, the project hit close to home. His parents lived in Krakow, Poland, when the Nazis came to power. Fagen’s mother, Rena, was a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Fagen’s parents narrowly escaped death thanks to German industrialist Oskar Schindler, the inspiration behind the title character of Steven Spielberg’s 1994 Academy Award-winning film “Schindler’s List.”

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On Jan. 17, students at the Project School, located in Bloomington, gathered in a classroom to watch an interactive presentation about the life of Anne Frank. The presentation — the first of a series that will be given to public schools in the community — was given by members of the Jacobs School of Music to raise awareness about the opera and life of Anne Frank.

Anne Slovin, a third-year doctoral student at IU, is playing the role of Anne Frank in one of the two casts and performed select music from the production. Slovin played the role of Anne Frank in the initial 2019 workshop before COVID-19 delayed production until May 2022, and said she felt honored to depict such a historically iconic figure. 

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