Inspiration for a cabaret called “Chopin's Heart”:
Frédéric Chopin, as he lay dying, had insisted his heart be removed to prevent his being buried alive. Upon his death his heart was lovingly placed in a jar of cognac and spirited away to Warsaw where it was interred in a pillar of the Holy Cross church. In life, Chopin was an almost mythical national hero and a source of intense pride. In WW II, his heart became the symbol and the soul of fierce partisan resistance. Our cabaret is the physical manifestation of that spirit.
Singers Jennifer Grimm, Maud Hixson and Prudence Johnson deliver composer Gary Rue’s beautiful songs inspired by the cabaret music of pre-World War II Warsaw, an artistic hotbed rivaling that of Berlin and Paris. As Europe stands on the precipice in 1939, the past, present and future collide in these songs of longing, lust, betrayal, fear, hope, redemption, and of course, love.
Featuring pianist extraordinaire Dan Chouinard and the vibrant violin of Randy Sabien, along with composer and lyricist Gary Rue.
"Chopin's Heart [music] is brilliant. Vocals and lyrics really affecting."
"The tunes are fantastic. Right up there with Gershwin/Porter/Carmichael."
"I’m lovin’ it! Smarvelous and swonderful!"
CHOPIN’S HEART is a historical fiction that uses real and imagined characters to create a vivid picture of a time and place. This comic, biting, and tragic musical gives us a glimpse into the lost world of pre-World War II Warsaw. The vibrant, cosmopolitan city that had a cabaret scene rivaling Berlin and Paris was utterly destroyed in 1939 and is gone forever. In 1964 London, survivor Frederic Sercki is a recluse haunted by the past. Fellow cabaret artist and survivor Zozo Terné attempts to prod his memory about the cabaret—Serce Chopina, or Chopin’s Heart—that he started just a few months before the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland.
But Frederic, who hides a secret from his old friend Zozo, does not wish to delve into his memories. It is not until the ghost of the internationally famous cabaret chanteuse Hanka Ordonówna shows up, along with other long-dead figures from his past, that both 1939 and 1964 come alive and commingle, creating the possibility of catharsis for Frederic.
CHARACTERS:
>Hanka Ordonówna, Poland’s brightest cabaret star, she has toured Europe and America, performed on the legitimate stage, and even made a few movies. In the 1930s, she married a wealthy member of the Polish nobility.
>Ferenc Járosy, actor, director, singer. In the past, he was Hanka’s lover; when she dumped him, he became Zozo’s lover. Almost two decades later, he still carries a torch for Hanka. An Austrian Jew, he is in grave danger in 1939.
>Zosia Terné, nicknamed Zozo, left for Paris after her relationship with Járosy ended, and became a star. Yet she, too, carries a torch -- for Járosy. Zozo’s mother is Jewish; her legal position is as precarious as Járosy’s.
>Frederic Sercki is the composer and music director who was the heart of the first cabaret in which they all worked. Everyone is counting on him to pen new hit songs. Will Poland’s increasingly authoritarian government throw him into an internment camp because of his sexual orientation or because of his penchant for creating bitingly political material?
>Marek Pustaki is a handsome lieutenant in the Polish Army and, though no one knows it, Frederic’s lover. If the Polish Army were to discover his sexual orientation, he would be court-martialed and sent to the Polish work camps.
>Prince Michal Tyszkiewicz, a successful songwriter, government minister, and a member of one of Poland’s oldest and most respected families, is Hanka’s husband. He is bankrolling the new cabaret.
CHOPIN’S HEART: where the past, present, and future of 1939 Europe collide.
