A Conversation with Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer and Howard Reich

Discover the story behind Music of Remembrance's newest opera commission, Before It All Goes Dark, and join us for a special premiere conversation with composer Jake Heggie, librettist Gene Scheer and writer Howard Reich, whose story inspired it all.
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Two years ago, Heggie learned from the distinguished music writer Howard Reich about an amazing story that Reich had reported in the Chicago Tribune about a troubled and aging Vietnam veteran who learned that he was the sole heir to a priceless art collection stolen by the Nazis from a great-great uncle in Prague whom he’d never even heard of. The opera takes us along on his arduous journey to Prague and beyond in search of this inheritance. We’re with him on a voyage of self-discovery as he absorbs the transformative power of art itself, and as he finds identity in the Jewish heritage that had been hidden from him.

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