Anne Frank musical sparks outrage

A Spanish musical based on the diary of Anne Frank has been condemned for trivialising the tragic story.

Critics including the teenager's last remaining relative said it is inappropriate to set the events of the Holocaust to song.

However, supporters of the show have argued that it will bring the message of tolerance in the 1947 book to a wider audience.

Director Rafael Alvero devised the musical after visiting the Amsterdam attic where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis in World War II. They were eventually arrested in 1944 and the 15-year-old died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp the following year.

Alvero told the AFP: "It really moved me, and I felt I would one day bring the feelings which the place, and the story, evoke to the public through something which I do with ease, which is produce music.

Although the Anne Frank Foundation has backed the stage adaptation, her 82-year-old cousin Buddy Elias said he was "very much against it", adding: "The Holocaust is not a theme to be made into a musical."

Elias, who owns the rights to the diary, said: "How can I support this when my cousin Anne Frank, who died in a concentration camp, who had a terrible destiny, is used for a happy musical with singing and dancing and I don't know what else?"

The Diary of Anne Frank: A Song to Life opens in Madrid on February 28 and will run until July.