{"id":8371,"date":"2010-11-10T13:17:53","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T20:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8371"},"modified":"2010-11-10T13:19:04","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T20:19:04","slug":"cape-town-opera-in-tel-aviv-with-porgy-and-bess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8371","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town Opera in Tel Aviv with Porgy and Bess"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rehearsals for Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess at the Israeli Opera\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIs it an opera? Is it a musical? Can we dance to it? Are there snappy tunes? Yes\u201d said David Stern, Musical Director of the Israeli Opera, of Gershwin\u2019s Porgy and Bess. The Cape Town Opera production, directed by Christine Crouse will open the season at the Israeli Opera with performances from November 12 \u2013 27, 2010.\u00a0 At a press meeting held yesterday evening, with Israeli Opera Director Hannah Munitz, Cape Town Opera Managing Director Michael Williams, and Cape Town Opera Artistic Director Christine Crouse, Stern spoke succinctly and swiftly before heading down to the hall to rehearse with the singers and orchestra.<\/p>\n

Stern began by saying that the opera has been criticized as racist because of the way it portrays black Americans and he acknowledged that \u201cthere are moments that need to be looked at.\u201d As for the Cape Town production, Stern said that it\u2019s setting in South Africa of the 1970s is \u201cbrilliant\u201d and of the performers that they are \u201cgreat singers on an international level.\u201d Commenting on Gershwin\u2019s collage of musical styles, Stern expressed the opinion that it was not merely \u201cshtiklach\u201d (Yiddish: trick or act) but \u201cit was the way he heard music,\u201d citing this as one of the reasons that there have not been any other operas written in this style \u2013 \u201cit was too strong a model to be copied.\u201d Stern said the Cape Town Opera performance of Porgy and Bess is \u201cvery moving, very clear. There is no one who can be unmoved.\u201d<\/p>\n

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David Stern, Michael Williams, Hannah Munitz and Christine Crouse address the press at the Israeli Opera\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hannah Munitz, General Director of the Israeli Opera opened the press conference saying that although plans for the current performance began four years ago, for a while it was \u201ctouch and go\u201d as the Cape Town Opera was under a great deal of pressure to cancel their performances in Israel. Calling Michael Williams, Managing Director of the Cape Town Opera \u201cour hero, a fantastic colleague, very brave,\u201d Munitz spoke against cultural boycotts, stressing the \u201cimportant differentiation between politics and culture. Culture builds bridges and allows people to know each other much better, not just from television, but face to face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams said that when his predecessor at the opera, Angelo Gobbato, first suggested Porgy and Bess, \u201cWe were quite na\u00efve about the power of the work. Now we\u2019ve taken this piece and made it our own. We looked at South Africa with its problems and contemporary issues, and have given it a very particular slant, a South African slant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, who received a letter from retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu asking him to cancel the performances in Israel, talked about his experiences, saying, \u201cI have great respect for the retired archbishop. He is a hero. He stood up to apartheid; he is a man of great moral vision, not afraid to speak his mind. On Wednesday last week I received a letter asking me to cancel. I felt very strongly that one needs to honor one\u2019s commitments.\u201d Williams said that he did not anticipate the torrent of mail following his announcement that the opera would perform in Israel as they had contracted.<\/p>\n

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Scene from rehearsals for Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Williams said, \u201cThe role of art is not to be commenting on politics, but to be commenting on life, and what makes life? Music \u2013 commenting through art.\u201d Williams said that during their stay in Israel the company plans to learn more about Israel and the issues, meeting with people, travelling and attending workshops. He later added that, \u201cas an artist myself, I was absolutely against the cultural boycott in South Africa, there was a generation of singers in South Africa who lost the opportunity for instruction from the presence of international performers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christine Crouse, Artistic Director of the Cape Town Opera and director of Porgy and Bess, talked about the decision to set the opera in South Africa of the 1970s, saying, \u201cI was looking for something different.\u201d Crouse spent time researching the period and found that there were \u201cstrong American influences\u201d in South Africa at that time, particularly in the music. She emphasized that the opera does not represent South Africa, but rather \u201cit\u2019s Catfish Row with South African overtones.\u201d Much of this sense of South Africa is in the visual elements of the opera. Crouse noted that the set design by Michael Mitchell includes banners painted with portraits of \u201cheroes of the struggle. In the Kittiwah scene the painting features Desmond Tutu \u2013 so he\u2019s with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Set of Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess at the Israeli Opera\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of her cast Crouse says she is \u201cVery proud. We really work together. I rely a lot on the singers – how they feel while performing this show. It has come to be a show owned by the people on the stage. They bring a special voice to the stage I feel blessed to have such wonderful singers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Porgy and Bess will be performed by the Tour of the Cape Town Opera, directed by Christine Crouse, with David Stern, Musical Director of the Israeli Opera and Albert Horne conducting the Opera Orchestra \u2013 the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion.<\/p>\n

The opera will be sung in English, with English and Hebrew surtitles, duration \u2013 approximately 3 hours. Each performance is preceded by an introductory talk that begins an hour before show time, with post-performance discussions and backstage tours on select dates. \u201cTowards Opening\u201d will take place on Saturday, November 13 at 11:00; tickets for the talk are 70 NIS.\u00a0 Performances will take place at the Israeli Opera\/Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center from November 12 \u2013 27. Additional information (in English) and a complete list of performance times can be found on the Israeli Opera website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIs it an opera? Is it a musical? Can we dance to it? Are there snappy tunes? Yes\u201d said David Stern, Musical Director of the Israeli Opera, of Gershwin\u2019s Porgy and Bess. The Cape Town Opera production, directed by Christine Crouse will open the season at the Israeli Opera with performances from November 12 \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8371","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=8371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}