SPOLETO FESTIVAL OF THE 2 WORLDS
CABARET YIDDISH by and with MONI OVADIA
at the Teatro Nuovo “Gian Carlo Menotti”
December 27, h 21.00
Yiddish language, music and culture, i.e. that unfathomable mix of German, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, Ukranian and Romanian, the universal condition of the Wandering Jew, his being stateless and rootless always and forever, are at the centre of “Yiddish Cabaret”, a chamber show that would later evolve into Oylem Goylem. It could be said that the show has the classic form of cabaret, the way it is commonly understood. It alternates musical pieces and songs with stories, anecdotes, quotes, that the proven skill of the entertainer makes tastefully vivid. But the curiosity of the show lies in the fact that it is entirely dedicated to that part of Jewish culture of which Yiddish is the language and Klezmer the music. A show that “smacks of steppes and backrooms, of streets and sinagogues”. All that Ovadia calls “the sound of exile, the music of dispersion“. In a word: diaspora.
Klezmer derives from the Hebraic words Kley Zemer, that refer to the musical instruments (violin, strings and clarinet) used by Eastern Jew traditional musicians since the XVIth century.
I chose to forget “philology” and follow another chance, proclaiming that this music transcends its “scientifically determined” space-time coordinates, to talk about the distances of man, his wounded soul, his absolute feelings, his relationships with the natural and social world, his being “holy”, his ability to stand up in the face of the universe, weak yet sublime. The humble men who created all this before being able to become free men, have been robbed of their culture and transformed into stupid consumers but have nevertheless managed to leave us a posthumous chance, a music that is generated where the distance between heaven and earth has the consistency of a thin hymeneal membrane which, vibrating, perhaps only for the time of a song, suggests, that maybe we have been put here for something else, even if it took the wrong road.
Featuring the Stage Orchestra (Maurizio Dehò on violin, Paolo Rocca on clarinet, Albert Florian Mihai on accordeon, Luca Garlaschelli on double bass). Sound engineer Mauro Pagiaro. Production: Oylem Goylem Produzioni and Corvino Produzioni.
