Deutsche Oper Berlin Remembers Władysław Waghalter

In mid-January 2020, members of the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin — the house Ignatz Waghalter opened as the Deutsches Opernhaus in 1912 — gave a concert titled Wider das Vergessen (“Against Forgetting”) in the opera’s Tischlerei. It was dedicated to four Jewish members of the orchestra who were driven out after 1933, among them Ignatz’s brother Władysław Waghalter, the orchestra’s concertmaster and founder of the Waghalter Quartet. The others honoured were Max Rosenthal, Hans Kraus, and Werner Lywen.

The series grew out of research in the opera’s archives by the orchestra’s principal timpanist, Benedikt Leithner. Grandchildren of the Waghalter brothers were in the audience, which gave the musicians a standing ovation.

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