{"id":55165,"date":"2025-07-14T18:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T15:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=55165"},"modified":"2025-07-14T18:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T15:18:20","slug":"israeli-opera-mothers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=55165","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Opera: Mothers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_55166\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-55166\" style=\"width: 733px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-55166\" src=\"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mothers-yossi-zwecker.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"733\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mothers-yossi-zwecker.jpg 733w, https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mothers-yossi-zwecker-300x205.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mothers-yossi-zwecker-640x437.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 733px) 100vw, 733px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-55166\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Israeli Opera &#8211; Mothers\/Photo: Yossi Zwecker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Israeli Opera will close its 39<sup>th<\/sup> season with Mothers, an original opera in Hebrew by David Sebba, directed by Shirit Lee Weiss.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>We are the mothers you didn\u2019t remember<\/em>\u2026\u201d*<\/p>\n<p>There are many women mentioned in the Bible, but few are given a voice. Mothers gives voice to the many women in the Book of Genesis, presenting the narratives from the perspective of the women. Sebba approaches the Book of Genesis with a contemporary sensibility, raising questions regarding the experiences of women, whose lives were dictated by God and men, many of whom were not even mentioned by name, such as the \u201cwife of Lot\u201d or \u201cthe wife of Potiphar\u201d. The opera focuses on critical scenes in the lives of these women \u2013 Sarah, Hagar, Lot\u2019s wife and others, imagining their inner thoughts and feelings. Leading this operatic journey is God \u2013 who is a soprano.<\/p>\n<p>A distinctive aspect of this production is the collaboration between the Israeli Opera and Gesher Theatre, in the inclusion of spoken monologue accompanied by music, as well as traditional operatic song. The wonderful soloists of the Israeli Opera \u2013 Shay Bloch, Yael Levita, Daniela Skorka and Anat Czarny, will be performing alongside leading actors from Gesher Theatre \u2013 Natasha Manor, Roni Einav, Lena Freifeld, and Lillian Shelly Roth. The opera will be sung in Hebrew and accompanied by the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion.<\/p>\n<p>David Sebba stated: \u201cI tried to listen and express the inner feelings of the women in the Book of Genesis, those who received the title of \u201cmothers\u201d and those who did not. To express the terrible moments of discrimination \u2013 in which Hagar is exiled to the desert with her son, Sarah whose permission is not required concerning the sacrifice of her only son Itzhak, the hated Leah who is brought to Jacob\u2019s tent in the dark of night, Bilhah, Zilpah, Lot\u2019s wife, and more. Although they are mythological heroes of the Jewish narrative \u2013 I viewed them as human beings with desires, love, hate, and weaknesses, just as they appear in the Book of Genesis, without criticizing or mocking, but rather in an attempt to find the source of their pain, without fear or embellishment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Performances will take place at the Israeli Opera from July 22 \u2013 26, 2025. Additional information and tickets are available on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.israel-opera.co.il\/en\/show\/mothers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Israeli Opera website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>*a quote from &#8220;Mothers&#8221; by David Sebba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Israeli Opera will close its 39th season with Mothers, an original opera in Hebrew by David Sebba, directed by Shirit Lee Weiss. \u201cWe are the mothers you didn\u2019t remember\u2026\u201d* There are many women mentioned in the Bible, but few are given a voice. Mothers gives voice to the many women in the Book of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[619,138,366,109,43],"class_list":["post-55165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-theater","tag-book-of-genesis","tag-israeli-opera","tag-mothers","tag-opera","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}