Noah Max launches opera adaptation of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A Child in Striped Pyjamas is a newly-created chamber opera by composer and conductor Noah Max. The project has taken five years to complete and will premiere in January 2023, with tickets available from today.

As a Jewish composer, Max’s personal connection with author John Boyne’s book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, goes back to his great grandparents’ narrow escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938. He was also encouraged to explore his Jewish heritage by his late mentor John Whitfield, who founded Endymion in 1979.

Max said: ‘[John and I] talked about Striped Pyjamas specifically, because it's a symbolic narrative - opera is great for symbolism and tragedy so it struck me that it had to be an opera – and it's a story about the destruction of innocence. I was interested in getting all this across from musical perspective and also trying to do justice to my own Jewish heritage, my family history and background.’

Entertainment company Miramax owns the rights to Boyne’s story after making a film of it in 2008, and so Max asked them for permission to produce the opera. A precedent had been set by the creation of a play and ballet based on the book, but the company initially asked Max for $1 million to allow the opera to be performed. However, just days before the publication of an article on the subject in the Jewish Chronicle, Miramax agreed to vwaive the fee, instead agreeing to a three-year collaboration with Max.

A sequel to Boyne’s 2006 novel will be coming out on 15 September, but Max feels that’s not the only reason now is the right time for a revival of the story. He said: ‘If one looks at the bare statistics, antisemitism is the only form of hatred which has done nothing but rise for the last 10 years. It seems to me that now is the right time to bring this story to a new audience who maybe haven't had it in the classroom and who want to engage with the story in a in a different way.’

As well as funding from the RVW Trust and individual donors, the production has also received support from the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) who are running workshops for the cast and crew on the history of the Holocaust including a meeting with a Holocaust survivor.

A Child in Striped Pyjamas will premiere on 11 and 12 January 2023, but is already having an impact. The HET, which initially refused to endorse Boyne’s original book, is now reevaluating its decision. Max said: ‘There are Holocaust Education organisations who don't want to touch this book, one of those included the Holocaust Educational Trust, but I shared with them this symbolic perspective and, to their credit, they held an interdepartmental review and are in the process of reviewing their stance on the book.’

You can find more out more about A Child in Striped Pyjamas, including tickets, here. Earlybird tickets are available until 16 October.