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Libretto by Ruby Numdar
Music direction by Yegor Shevtsov
Directed by Ronit Muszkatblit
The last days of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the controversial act of Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai, who bargained with the Roman power, giving up on the glories and extravagances of old Jerusalem, in return for a humble center of learning (Beit Midrash) in a small coastal town of Yavne.
" truly fresh….serious without being ponderous…. not afraid to play with operatic conventions… unpredictable — sometimes absurd, sometimes sincere — but with a core of real feeling." NY Times
Confined within the walls of a besieged and starving city, a Rabbi conceives of a monumental shift in consciousness and an alternative destiny for his people. Through a tapestry of extraordinary episodes, the hybrid opera, 3WEEKS, re-constructs the events of the siege of Jerusalem, and the controversial act of Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai, who bargained with the Roman power, giving up on the glories of Jerusalem in return for a modest center of learning.
Following his critically acclaimed MOSHEH (HERE Arts Center, 2011), 3WEEKS is a new effort from a creator who aims at the revival of the operatic form as a cutting edge 21st century medium.
In the chronicles of the forcible exile of the Jews from Jerusalem, replete with many subplots, contradicting variations and commentary, the following story is told: The year is 68 AD; Jerusalem is besieged by the Roman legions. Within the city walls, the Zealots have taken control, burned the stores of food and fuel, and are refusing to negotiate with the Romans.
Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai, a distinguished sage, despairs of hope for the survival of the capital. He has himself smuggled out of the city, disguised as a corpse in a coffin. Once outside, he goes before Vespasian, the Roman general (later Emperor) in command of the siege. A fateful, yet absurd, conversation ensues. Yochanan exhibits unusual wisdom, divining from trivial signs that the general is destined to be Emperor. This foresight wins him Vespasian's favor, and he is granted a wish. Yochanan fateful reply: "give me Yavneh and its sages," means, in effect: take Jerusalem, but let us retain the "beit midrash" (a house of study) at Yavneh.
Three Weeks is scored for nine singers, eleven musicians and video projections. It was first conceived in 2008, and named after the period in the Jewish calendar leading up to the day of commemoration. I approached award-winning writer and scholar Reuven (Ruby) Namdar to work with me on the text. We decided to construct a libretto entirely of quotes from the source material in their original languages. Ruby collected Talmudic sources and meticulously assembled them, leaving intact re-iterations, contradiction and absurdities typical of a story that has been passed down though generations. The text spoken by the Romans was translated "back" to Latin from Hebrew and Aramaic, with the generous help from Judith Hallet and David Ratzan. The musical style of the work is somewhat similar to that of my earlier opera MOSHEH - somtimes described as "Baroque Minimalism". In contrast to MOSHEH, However, 3WEEKS is a faster paced work, which relies on abrupt juxtapositions of contrasting textures to create the sense of disorientation brought about by siege and war. This treatment retains the complex and layered "memory" of the events. The rapid succession of scenes, and superimposition of live and recorded sound and image, create a dense texture of information, which is contrasted with sections of vast emptiness and sadness.
A large group of characters, including sages, zealots, Roman officers and wealthy Jerusalemites, are enacted by a group of nine performers, doubling the various parts in live as well as pre-recorded performances. The gender of the character is fluid, with females performing male parts and vise versa. The vocal characterization plays on popular perception of 'opera' as over-stylized, endowing the Romans (Italian invaders) with a Baroque extravagance, and the Jews with a more familiar straight tone.
An intensely tragic cloud hovers over this narrative in the Talmud. Yochanan's meeting with the General forms a great hinge in Jewish history, and his "bargain" is debated and re-evaluated by later sages in Talmudic texts. Ben Zakkai gambled that a people, his people, could survive without a homeland. Land possession and the projection of power would be replaced by a focus on study, prayer, and law. Tradition and community would uphold the people regardless the geographical and political realities they found themselves in. But survival in exile proved very precarious, and in the 20th century the State of Israel was established on the opposite realization, that survival finally depended on the possession of land and the means of power. Thus the issues framed by Ben Zakai's quiet revolution are still acutely relevant today. His act put in motion an unfolding morality play, which still garners disproportionate attention on the world's stage.
