The story spans ten years and is about how two people's love endured and persisted through separation in the turmoil and chaos of the war and subsequent cold war "peace" as Barbara becomes a refugee and survives two dangerous treks toward the West through bombings, strafings and starvation.

While Mike becomes a wounded warrior, survives a random massacre of prisoners and becomes a Prisoner of War for three years, surviving by dint of his charm and trickery. 

The couple survived and eventually reunited because of love, courage, faith and miraculous events. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Friendly Enemy Musical is based upon the following Opera Treatment

Act I The courtship of Mike and Barbara Weber.
Location Tschippendorf, Rumania.

00 Overture - Instrumental, introduction of various themes of the opera.

01 Narrator’s Introduction - This music features an older contralto singing the background introduction to The Friendly Enemy Opera. Hint. At the end of the opera it is revealed that this singer Narrator is the heroine’s daughter mentioned in the second act who took part in the harrowing adventures as part of the group of refugees in which the heroine participated.

02 Barbara’s Prayer - Barbara gives thanks for all her blessings, poor as she is. She prays o meet someone interesting at the spindle party later today. This piece introduces the main female lead character.

03 Spinning Dance - Barbara’s mother explains how to spin the hemp into cloth using a spindle to her daughters and young female friend. The girls then dance and the music evolves into a symbol of how their lives are woven into the result.

04 Mike Meets Barbara - This music starts with teenage girls anticipating the arrival of some boys, including a reputedly handsome sophisticated city stranger named Mike Weber. The boys arrive and interrupt the girls spinning work with boasts and bragging. Mike tells his life story of growing up in the city and this adds to his allure.

05 Romance Theme - The music changes to a romantic theme as Mike Weber tricks Barbara into giving him a kiss, which infuriates his rival, Mike Prall. The music ends with everyone singing the Transylvania patriotic song Siebenbürgen.

06 Preacher's Prayer - A sonorous somber them highlights the tone of the preacher in church preaching that children should avoid temptations, without giving specifics and admonishing the congregation to be patriotic and prepared to sacrifice the blood of their children if war comes, comparing this to Christ’s sacrifice.

07 After Church Courtship - Mike flirts with Barbara after church and starts his more serious .

08 Fight - Mike is confronted by his rival who provokes a fight, in which Mike sends his foe scurrying away in abject surrender. The music is fast and furious as well as the choreography for the fight scene.

09 Gypsy Polka - Barbara is enjoying herself at the weekly community dance as Mike’s courtship continues to the Gypsy Band music playing in the background.

10 - Seven Step Dance - Children are being taught a traditional Saxon folk dance by Barbara’s Mother.

11 Family Discussion - Most of the music in this section is recitativo or changes mood and tempo frequently as the family discusses the suitability of Mike Weber as a suitor for Barbara’s hand. Practical questions dominate the discussion, as the family wants to ensure their survivability through a marriage. Questions arise about how a city boy with no attachment to local traditions can manage to do heavy farm work, but Grandfather Ohler’s liking for Mike Weber helps carry the day in Mike’s favor.

12 Happiness - This is a duet between Mike Weber and Barbara as she informs him of her family’s approval of his courtship. However, the minor key of the music provides a somber tone as if in anticipation of the tragedies and difficulties facing this alliance in the near future. Mike finally proposes and then Barbara tells him he is a little late; the family is already planning their wedding.

13 13b Seven Step - Then the music shifts to a celebration dance to the music of a continuation of the 13b Seven Step Dance music.

14 Tradition - While waiting for the wedding to begin, the men and Men’s Ensemble sing about the importance (and sometimes illogical) value of traditions.

15 Wedding - Barbara’s aunt tries in vain to get her to change her mind about marrying Mike at the last minute, but Barbara adamantly refuses and the wedding proceeds, followed by a congregational hymn.

16 Wedding Feast - The music is essentially the same as Barbara’s Prayer and consists of two toasts by male relatives.

17 Wedding Tango - The Gypsy Band plays music for the wedding reception at the community hall, culminating in a romantic tango dance by Mike and the new Mrs. Mike Weber.

18 Drafted - On the morning after their wedding, there is a knock at the door of their wedding chambers and Mike receives a shattering blow with the news that he is being drafted, just as they are getting ready to start their new life together. The music and lyrics are comedic, as emblematic of the sense of humor that enabled this couple to survive all the events to come.

Act II Barbara becomes a refugee fleeing the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Mike is in the Hungarian Army.

19 Army Life - Mike tries to get out of the Hungarian Army because he can claim American Citizenship due to being born in the United States. However, his superior gives him a choice of going to prison as an American Spy or serving in the Army so he chooses to enlist. Later, the Lieutenant is frustrated by his recruits and starts shooting his pistol, resulting in his demotion to Corporal.

20 Barrack’s Life - This is an expansion of life as a new recruit in the Army. The scene demonstrates the universality of conscript life and could have occurred in any army in the world.

21 Dirty Jokes What goes on in the Barrack’s after hours? Again, the camaraderie of military life is further expounded upon.

22 Seduction - Barbara tries to visit her husband in his military post but Mike’s superior has designs on her, until she is rescued by a benevolent older commander.

23 Barbara and Mike’s Barrack’s Visit - Barbara gets to visit with Mike and he sees his 9 month old daughter for the first time. The couple are in ecstasy but their future is clouded by war and ominous events in the home front for the Jews and other civilians.

24 Narrator 2 - The Narrator describes briefly Mike’s routine mundane military life in the first three years of the war, serving in an isolated post in the Border Guards. Hungary was in a dilemma and had to choose as allies between Germany and Russia. No matter what they chose, they would lose.

25 Combat - After serving his three years, Mike thought he was free from the military but he was recalled and served with a Muslim unit fighting partisans in Yugoslavia. His bullying superior, Corporal Nador, is exposed as a coward in their first exposure to combat.

26 Refugees - The Narrator bridges the gap in civilian life introducing the changes that would end the 800 year old residency of the Saxons in Transylvania and their loss of everything they had ever known, including, in some cases, their very lives, due to starvation and enemy fire. Church bells ring and drums drum, summoning villagers to the town meeting that changes their status to refugees fleeing the Russian onslaught. They are confronted by a dirty, starving soldier. After some consideration they share some of their paltry provisions with him, even though starving themselves.

27 Wounded - Mike is shown in combat, fighting with inferior military equipment. The best equipment of course goes to the German Army. As a result, his machine gun jams and he is wounded in the leg and eye..

28 Home - Mike wakes up in the refugee camp in Czechoslovakia where his wife Barbara is staying with her family temporarily. He thinks the war is lost but decides not to desert because deserters are hung all over from lampposts and tees as a warning to others.

29 Russian Drinking Party - Barbara and her family join the leader of the convoy Uncle Mike in making an attempt to reach Austria in the Western Zone to find freedom. They are waylaid by a Russian vanguard of advancing troops and are frightened, having heard many rumors of widespread rape and abuse of refugees. However, Uncle Mike distracts the Russians, wins them over with his charm and gets them drunk. The Russians start dancing traditional Russian type folk dancing until they work themselves up into a stupor. After sunup the Russians depart, leaving the refugees to continue their trek in safety.

30 Promised Land - After one more frightening adventure (of many) The refugees reach the Western shores of the Danube River in Austria and the safety of the American Zone. Threatened with starvation, they by chance are spared by the appearance and intervention of the starving soldier they had saved earlier in the trek as refugees to Czechoslovakia.

31 Running - Mike returns to the hospital in Budweis, Czechoslovakia to report to duty, but the hospital staff have deserted the place. He joins up with some fellow patients including Carl Weber from Austria. The group takes off in an abandoned Red Cross van but abandon it and their weapons after running out of gas, fleeing on foot through the woods, where they are shot down one by one by Czech guerrillas. Mike is hampered by his crutches and throws them away, limping with the survivors.

32 Captured - Mike and 7 friends are captured by Czech partisans. The partisans are angry at the German soldiers and decide to line them up against the wall and randomly shoot every other prisoner in the head. Somehow Mike and Carl miraculously escape death, and leave through a hole in the wall before the Czechs change their minds. Finally, too exhausted to flee any further, they give up and collapse on the ground, where they are woken up by the sound of American tanks. Thinking they are saved, they throw their hands up in the air and surrender.

Act III Mike is a Prisoner of War in Russia for three years.

33 Dashed Hopes - For three days, Mike & Carol are treated well by the Americans. They are even allowed to keep their pistols. Then, the prisoners are handed over to the Russians and everything changes. They are deceived into cooperating by promises that they will be returned home in three days.

34 The Train Ride to Hell - Mike & Carl are taken on a 3 month train exodus to central Russia in crowded boxcars and treated miserably. They are only given one paltry meal a day, and lose that on the rare occasion when someone attempts to escape. A group did manage to escape and the Russians just grabbed the same number of Hungarians from a train work party to keep the numbers totaling exactly.

35 POW Camp - Mike describes the daily routine of life in a POW Camp.

36 Christmas 1945 - Barbara laments another Christmas without her husband, Mike. She doesn’t even know if he’s alive or dead. Their lives are harsh, barely existing on work for food and board, with no or little pay. Everyone is depressed and tense. Barbara gets in a fight with her sister over some silly sunflower seeds. They try to put on a happy face for Christmas for the Children.

37 Interrogation - Major Stolichnaya begins his questioning friendly enough with an invitation to play a game of chess, but ominously puts his pistol on the table between he and Mike. Mike relates his feeling that the war was a mistake and that he was just a dupe, used as a pawn by the leaders. He denies being an American spy, but the Russian ascertains that, by coincidence, he was the Russian who got drunk with Mike’s wife’s Uncle Mike on the road to Austria and takes it in rare good humor, reporting he will not bother Mike with any more questions. The pistol was loaded with blanks and was a test of Mike’s reliability.

38 The Postcard - Barbara is wondering whether to consider another suitor’s offer to date her when she finally receives a postcard that proves she is not a widow.

39 Carl’s Crisis - Mike’s only surviving friend gets sick and dies after bequeathing his only possession, his identity for his friend Mike to use if it can help him.

40 Freedom - Mike is summoned to the commander’s office and is surprised to learn that he is considered to sick to be an asset in the Russian economy any further and is discharged with only the rags on his back and a train pass, where he must survive the 3,000 mile train trek back to the West.

41 Reunited - Barbara is summoned from her work in the fields. She resists leaving work early, but her mother explains that the ragged vagabond standing there on crutches is her husband, Mike, who she finally recognizes. The family gather to celebrate this miraculous reunification after three years as a prisoner. The narrator reveals that Mike and Barbara emigrate to the United States, become prosperous, have six more children and retire to a relatively comfortable existence as good American citizens. The Narrator reveals she is Maria, the baby who almost starved to death as a refugee on Barbara’s trek to freedom.