Prague Journal

Friday, April 15, 2005.

We drove to Tel Aviv shortly after breakfast. Helen had been able to opera tickets for the matinee (there are no evening performances on Friday) of Beethoven’s Fidelio, at the new Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center. The Israeli Opera moved there in 1994, and since then many opera companies from all over the world have performed in guest productions there. The major artistic aim of the New Israeli Opera has always been to present opera as a dramatic-theatrical art form, and this production of Fidelio was in keeping with that mission. It was produced in cooperation with the prestigious Salzburg Festival and the Tokyo National Opera. The program notes boasted “Renowned German director Nilolaus Lehnhoff presents an opera which is beyond time and place, an opera that denounces tyranny and calls for freedom and the protection of human rights.” The set was minimalist, with an elevator and an illuminated staircase for dramatic entries and exits, and lighting that conveyed the deep despair of the prisoners.
Beethoven labored over Fidelio, his only opera, writing three versions with four different overtures, and working with three librettists. Fidelio is the tale of the loving wife, Leonore, who disguises herself as a male prison guard, Fidelio, in an attempt to rescue her husband, Florestan, who is in a grim concrete prison block awaiting death. In Act I, Leonore, disguised as Fidelio, tries to ingratiate herself with Rocco while fending off the unwanted attentions of his smitten daughter, Marzelline. Leonore veers between her facade as a kind-hearted, inexperienced young man and her inner turmoil over Florestan’s fate. After hurling herself in front of the evil Pizarro’s knife and then threatening him with her own loaded pistol, Act II culminates in Leonore and Florestan’s reunion and proclamation of their joy in a rhapsodic love duet. In this production, the orchestra and singing were good but not excellent, and the set and costumes were minimized, relying on the lighting to convey despair and/or joy. There was very little engaging movement of the cast. Perhaps the director chose to rely on the music to convey the story. Since the performing arts center is unadorned, the sparse staging seemed a bit lacking. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the performance and the chance to see the opera in a modern setting.
After the opera, we drove to Danny and Ronit’s new house in Kefar Vitkin, about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv. Ray and Helen returned to Haifa and we spent the afternoon with Danny and Ronit and their young children. We had last seen them almost exactly two years ago when they visited us in Denver. But two years is a long time when children are young, and we hardly recognized Ayelet, now 7, and Nativ, now 5. It's not Passover yet, but already Danny and Ronit are serving Matzoh and making Matzoh Brei, a Jewish dish made of matzoh that has been soaked in water or milk, then squeezed dry and dipped in egg and fried, much like French Toast. That evening the house was filled with shalom bayit (domestic peace and warmth), as Ronit hummed Dayenu with the kids and Nativ practiced the four questions he would be called upon to ask at the seder.

posted by JWinn @ 10:40 PM