Jehoash Hirshberg

Josef Bardanashvili’s A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A New Israeli Opera

During the past ten years, the Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv–Yafo commissioned four original works, thereby enriching the extremely limited repertory of Israeli operas.[1] In May 2005, the Opera presented the world premiere of their fourth commission: A Journey to the End of the Millennium by Josef Bardanashvili (b. 1948), setting a libretto by author Abraham B. Yehoshua (b. 1936) based on his novel by the same name. It was a festive occasion, with full houses and a warm reception.

A. B. Yehoshua is one of Israel’s most renowned authors. His many novels and short stories refer directly and critically to painful and sensitive issues of Israeli society. A Journey to the End of the Millennium is an exception in this respect. Published towards the end of the second millennium (1997), it takes place at the end of the first millennium. The book relies on the author’s in-depth research into the history, theology, and sociology of the great centres of medieval Jewish Diaspora: North Africa, France and Germany. It is written in a poetic style, in the manner of a slow medieval travel romance, depicting a series of voyages – by sea, river and land – from Tangier, through Paris, to Worms in the German Black Forest, and with recollections of other voyages through North Africa and Moslem Spain. All these varied locations are presented with acute attention to the most minute details of human customs and beliefs, scenery, costumes, furniture, and sacred objects.

The plot itself is simple, yet it has far-reaching implications. Ben-Attar, a rich Jewish merchant from Tangier, is going on prolonged business travels selling perfumes, herbs, and precious Oriental artefacts in Christian Europe. His partners are his young nephew Abulafia and the local Moslem Abu Lutfi. Ben-Attar is happily married and has two small children. Abulafia had left Tangier heartbroken after his beloved young wife had committed suicide following a still birth; he now lives in the small town of Paris. There he has just married Esther-Minna, an older, mature widow who had come from Worms, the heartland of strict Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewry.

The action of the opera commences when Ben-Attar takes a young and pretty second wife, as customary among Jews in the Moslem world. Yet Abulafia informs him that the rabbis of Ashkenaz had totally banned polygamy, and therefore the deeply religious Esther-Minna – strongly supported by her strict brother, Levinas – demands that Abulafia immediately sever his many-year partnership with his uncle. The shocked Ben-Attar bluntly refuses to break his deep attachment to his young nephew, whom he treats as his own son. He takes his two wives and his Moslem partner Abu Lutfi, recruits the advocacy of the charismatic young Rabbi Elbaz from Seville, and they all sail to Paris. There, Ben-Attar requests a religious court proceeding (Din Torah) to force Abulafia to renew the partnership and approve of his second marriage, on the grounds that this is the custom in the Jewish community in North Africa. Elbaz cunningly manages to elect a jury of simple men and women at the local Jewish winery. He and Ben-Attar appeal to the jury by a smart combination of legal claims (for example, that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as King Solomon, married more than one wife) and emotional pleas to preserve the partnership. The jury responds favourably and grants the approval.

Esther-Minna, however, refuses to accept the verdict which, according to her, was passed by ignorant, hedonistic drunks. She demands that Abulafia either divorce her or go to Worms for a truly respectable Din Torah. Torn between his deep love to Esther-Minna and his loyalty to Ben-Attar, Abulafia agrees to a second Din Torah. They all go on the long journey to Worms, where they meet a hostile, strictly Orthodox community and an Ashkenazi rabbi as a single referee. The First Wife makes a careful and polite attempt to win the referee to her side. Yet all hopes are shattered when the young and emotional Second Wife not only supports her husband’s customs but also requests parallel rights for a woman to take a second husband. Shocked and horrified, the judge excommunicates Ben-Attar on the spot, thus breaking the partnership forever. In the novel, the heartbroken family embarks on the long journey back, in the course of which the Second Wife, who blames herself for the disaster, falls ill and dies. The partnership is saved, but the price paid renders it meaningless. In the opera the final scene is more abrupt, as discussed below.

Yehoshua’s fascinating novel is one of the most original and powerful in modern Hebrew literature. Although it takes place in the remote past, its principal message relates to present time and place. Through a family tragedy, the author touches on three broad and sensitive issues:

Firstly, he admonishes the strict and inflexible religious edicts which crush individual emotions and family ties.

Secondly, he depicts the painful collision between two cultural worlds which splits Judaism apart. The same conflict – between ‘oriental’ (Mizrahyiim) Jews and Ashkenazi Jews – is very much in evidence in modern Israel.

Thirdly, he tackles the much-discussed issue of women’s position in a male-dominated world. This is symbolized by the fact that Ben-Attar’s two wives have no names: they are referred to merely as First Wife (Isha Rishona) and Second Wife (Isha Shniya). In the opera’s first scene, when the two women first meet one another, the First Wife, who represents the old tradition, calms down the worried young girl who is about to get married: she would not fight the younger woman as a rival, since she would rather be jealous of a known member of the family than of any strange woman whom Ben-Attar might encounter in his frequent travels. The learned, strong-minded and domineering Esther-Minna has her name spelled out, yet when Ben-Attar reaches Abulafia’s home in Paris, he addresses Esther-Minna as ‘New Wife’ (Isha Hadasha). Esther-Minna herself asserts her feminine will at the Parisian court scene, when she insists, successfully, that women will be included in the jury. The height of the tragedy is reached when the young Second Wife tries to exert her own personality and desires, to which the Ashkenazi rabbi brutally responds by pronouncing immediate excommunication.

A. B. Yehoshua took it upon himself to arrange the long novel into a necessarily much shortened libretto. Unfortunately, his libretto lost the novel’s poetic qualities: Yehoshua incorporates several Jewish medieval poems and prayers into his operatic text, but these only jar against the modern, down-to-earth Hebrew in the rest of the libretto. Also, several scenes in the first act are too detailed and drawn out. The author’s wish to shape the adaptation of his novel is understandable; but there is much to say for the traditional practice of romantic opera, in which experienced librettists-poets turned novels and plays by others into successful operatic libretti.

The composer Josef Bardanashvili was born in Georgia, where he was a well-reputed composer and music educator, as well as Director of the Music College in Batumi and Deputy Culture Minister of the Adjaria Autonomous Region. He immigrated to Israel in 1995 as part of the large wave of Jewish immigration from the crumbling Soviet Union which had started in 1990. His music features a unique synthesis of classical and avant-garde western influences with the traditions of the music of central Asia and of the Jewish synagogues. Soon after his immigration, he established himself as one of Israel’s leading composers. Journey to the End of the Millennium is his first Hebrew opera, but it reflects his considerable experience in musical theatre: he composed several operas, ballets and other dramatic works, and wrote musical scores for many plays and films in Georgia and Israel alike.

The opera is structured in two acts, with six scenes in the first and four scenes in the second.

Act 1

The long first scene is an exposition, presenting most of the opera’s protagonists. Abulafia, still mourning his young wife, arrives on time to attend the wedding of Ben-Attar with his Second Wife. The scene begins with an exciting, heterophonic chorus which depicts the oriental colours of Tangier, and ends with another beautiful chorus accompanying the wedding ceremony itself. A large part of the scene is devoted to two long dialogues – first between Ben-Attar and Abu Lutfi, and then between Ben-Attar and Abulafia. These dialogues reveal a certain weakness of this opera – a weakness all too typical of the genre since the early twentieth century, especially in Germany. The traditional parola scenica of romantic Italian opera was turned into atonal melodic lines, usually moving in big, angular leaps and ending on long, high notes, to which the orchestra responds with brief outbursts. At times, Bardanashvili uses Sprechstimme notation, which sounds midway between singing and rhetorical speech. At this point, the work is still missing the basic property of opera throughout its history: the ability of the music to heighten emotionally climactic moments through an aria, whether formally separate from the recitative or integrated into dense and active orchestral activity.

The second scene, which takes place at Marke d’Espagne (on the border between Moslem Spain and Christian Europe), triggers the conflict when Abulafia informs Ben-Attar of his recent marriage to Esther-Minna, and of her rejection of his bigamist uncle. The third scene introduces the lively character of Rabbi Elbaz – a high, buffo-style countertenor.

The music undergoes a magical transformation in the beautiful fourth scene. Here, the long sea and river voyage to Paris is represented through a heterophonic chorus, Hamu galim beruts galgalim (The Waves Rumbled when the Wheels Rolled), setting verses from poems by Yehuda Halevi. The fifth scene, set in Paris, introduces the remaining chief protagonists, Esther-Minna and her brother Levinas. Esther-Minna makes her first appearance alongside her husband, Abulafia: their Halleluia prayer is an expressive duet with long melodic lines. The painful encounter between the guests from Tangier and the Parisian couple reaches its climax with the powerful monologue of the heartbroken and overruled Esther-Minna, who is forced to admit the two wives into her home. Her emotional melodic line is mingled with the voices of Ben-Attar and his wives from the other room. This is the first truly operatic situation in this work, and it is handled very effectively.

At this point there is a contradiction between the score and the printed libretto. In the score, the first act reaches its musical climax with Scene 6 – the court proceedings at the Jewish winery in Paris – which functions as a traditional ‘grand finale’. In the libretto, the act ends with the fifth scene, and the second act begins with the court scene. The Israeli Opera’s production adopted the latter arrangement.

Scene 6 glitters with a variety of musical styles and techniques. While officially part of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, the music depicts the Parisian winery as being halfway between Tangier and Moslem Spain on the one hand and the strict Worms on the other. The scene opens with a Sefardi piyut, in the manner of a lively Brindisi. The dramatic motion is triggered in the manner of operatic parlante: the orchestra plays a lively two-part baroque-like invention, which carries the quick vocal exchange of motives. The music is happily tonal and clearly directional. Abu Lutfi randomly elects the jury accompanied by scherzando, airy motifs on the piccolo and flute. The jury pronounces the verdict in an impressive archaic two- and four-part organum. The orchestra closes the rich scene with a joyous dance in the manner of tango. From the operatic point of view this scene should have indeed acted as the first act’s finale. Unfortunately, the length of the opening scenes – especially the first – has forced it into the second act, creating an imbalance in that this act now contains both court scenes.

Act 2

In the score, Act 2 begins, appropriately, with a powerful monologue of the defeated Esther-Minna, structured as an expressive arioso that leads to a stormy, rhythmic aria. The scene gathers further momentum with the entry of the other protagonists and the intermingling of personal and theological conflicts. Rabbi Elbaz insists that Esther-Minna is not allowed to reject a Din Torah rendered by a jury which represents the entire congregation, but even he must admit that if she abandons her husband she would be deemed a ‘rebellious’ woman and Abulafia would be obliged to divorce her.

Another ‘travel scene’, with the same Sefardi Piyut that already appeared in Scene 4, mysteriously depicts the journey to Ashkenaz. The world of Orthodox Jewry is aptly represented by a traditional Ashkenazi morning prayer, Mode ani (I give thanks before thee), which beautifully preserves the naturally heterophonic nature of Ashkenazi congregational service. Interestingly, the German soundscape is depicted by the cool, neutral sound of the organ – not a medieval Jewish instrument, but definitely a symbol of western European music.

The intensive scene moves directly to the court proceeding, which this time centres on the two women’s testimony. The referee (Borer) addresses the women in an ornamental, prayer-like melodic style, and the First Wife joins his style and is accompanied by the organ in a powerful attempt to convince him and the congregation of the rightness of her manner of thinking. The Second Wife also starts in declamatory, psalmodic style, but soon she breaks into an expressive arioso, pronouncing her erotic dream of a woman with two husbands. The referee and the chorus respond angrily, as ten Jews in dark cloths pronounce Ben-Attar’s excommunication with long Shofars – seen on the stage but not played – and the powerful scene abruptly ends.

The final scene brings the opera to a moving emotional climax. Rather than following the slow journey back home and the deterioration of the young woman, the opera has a befitting stage denouement. Heartbroken, the Second Wife wanders to the marshes of the Black Forest, blaming herself for ruining her family and the partnership. In vain does Ben-Attar call for help in finding her: Esther-Minna insists that he is excommunicated and must not be helped. Abulafia painfully recalls the horrible loss of his first wife, an event which is about to repeat itself. Ben-Attar and his First Wife both curse the partnership which has brought such a disaster, but it is too late. The moving scene commences with the painful, flowing ornamental lines of the Second Wife’s lament. Her voice hovers from the hill above. With a final emotional cry, she is seen sinking into the marsh, and the opera ends with a powerful congregational prayer, Eloheinu ve-elohey avotenu (Our God and God of our fathers), which sounds cold and impersonal against the human tragedy.

The fine theatre director Omri Nitzan conceived the production as a grand opera, with large and colourful choral ensembles. The beautiful sets and costumes by Ruth Dar featured enormous curtains which dropped all the way from the roof and occasionally covered the entire stage, with the lighting by Felice Ross marking the travel from the blinding desert yellow of Tangier to the deep green of Marke d’Espagne, the rich red of the winery in Paris, and finally the depressing grey-black of the Black Forest and the Orthodox German congregation. The excellent cast included Edna Pruchnik and Ira Bertman as the two wives, Larissa Tetuyev as Esther-Minna, Alexander Badea (the only non-Israeli soloist) as Abulafia, Gaby Sadeh as Ben-Attar, Yaniv d’Or as Rabbi Elbaz, and Vladimir Braun as Abu Lutfi.

Originally the dean of Israeli conductors, Gary Bertini, was chosen to conduct the difficult score, and he took an active part in shaping the opera and in choosing the cast. Following his sudden death shortly before the premiere, the Musical Director of the Israeli Opera, Asher Fisch, undertook the task and conducted the opera with mastery and dedication and with full collaboration of the fine orchestra (the Israel Symphony Orchestra, Rishon-Lezion) and choir (the Philharmonia Singers).

One hopes that the life span of this original and important new opera would continue beyond its five productions in Tel Aviv – preferably with a certain revision and tightening of the first three scenes. Such a powerful, moving opera, with its eternal human message and its deep roots in Jewish history, deserves to have additional productions in Israel and in other countries.

Jehoash Hirshberg is a professor at the Musicology Department, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The history and sociology of Israeli art music has been one of his central fields of research.

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[1] On the reasons for the relative neglect of the composition of operas in Israel, see Jehoash Hirshberg, Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880-1948: A Social History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 65-77.