Opera – ‘Flying Lessons’ at the Cameri Theatre

Posted on February 10, 2010 by admin

I do not want to let too much time pass before I write something about a performance that I enjoyed at the Cameri Theatre put on stage in collaboration with the new Israeli Opera. The name of the representation is ‘Lauf MeCan’ which translates literaly as ‘Fly Away from Here’ although in the show program the ‘official translation’ is ‘Flying Lessons’.

The legend says that the Jewish community of Djerba – an island out of the Tunisian coast – holds the secret of the door of the Temple in Jerusalem brought here by Jews that arrived here after the destruction of temple, Jews who hold the secret of flying. This is the premise of the opera whose music is composed by Ella Milch-Sheriff on a libretto by Nava Semel.

The action happens in the early 50s Israel, perceived as a time of innocence for the young and idealistic society that was gathering at that time refugees of the Holocaust in Europe meeting with the Oriental Jews whose majority did not go through the historical horror of the Holocaust, and the sabras born in Israel, apparently sure of their identity but missing the roots and not spared themselves from loss and tragedy. The coming of age of the society is symbolized by the coming of age of the hero of the story, a teenage girl who meets a surviving Jew from Djerba, one of the few places in North Africa whose Jews suffered the tragedy of the Holocaust. While trying to catch the ancient secret of flying, she will learn that the true power resides inside, that the flight is not necessarily towards a point in the sky but more towards inner self-understanding and power of dreaming.

The program calls the show a ‘chamber opera’ and this almost discouraged me from using two of my subscription tickets to see it. The music is first of all very accessible and I am not sure if ‘chamber operetta’ or ‘chamber musical’ would not have been better descriptions of what we hear. I actually never understood exactly what is the difference between a musical and an opera or operetta. Then the performance is directed by Yael Ronen who is one of the best directors of the Israeli theater nowadays, I have seen her Plonter a couple of years ago at the same theater, one of the best political plays seen in years on an Israeli stage. Here she uses a well inspired sets designed by Anat Sternschuss in a naive manner reminding the kids TV shows of the 70s and combines them with a Far East style of shadows theater. The result is simple, expressive and fit to the target.

Last but certainly not least it’s an opera, so the quality of the singing is determinant. The singers are just great. Einat Aronstein is one of the many young sopranos in a generation of Israeli talents that seems too rich to have just one place to produce themselves, so they need other opportunities than the ones offered by the big neighboring stage of the New Israeli Opera. Gabi Sadeh is one of the most experienced Israeli tenors. he may be beyond the pick of his career but the role of the old refugee Monsieur Maurice from the island of Djerba fits him perfectly, and his performance is superb not only musically but also from an acting perspective.

The performance that I attended last Saturday was supposed to be the last in a series of ten and only ten performances. The theatre was full, and I see on the Web site of the Theatre that another series of performances is planned starting with the end of April. Whoever is around, do not miss it.

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Film – ‘The Hurt Locker’ (US – 2009)

Posted on February 9, 2010 by admin

William James (acted by Oscar candidate for best lead role Jeremy Renner) is a character that is hard to forget. He is a soldier whose expertise is to defuse bombs. He played dices with fate more than 800 times and won each time. When he enters a bomb threat scene he walks directly to the target, with the sure straight walk of an American hero. His enthusiastic commander officers believe that he does ‘hot sh.t’ and congratulate him. His soldier fellows think that he is crazy and that he endangers himself and the other carelessly. When asked how he does it he shrugs and just says ‘I try to be careful and stay alive’.

William James is different from his fellow soldiers. Those are not heroes. They are just normal people, young men doing their tour of duty in Iraq, counting back the days to the end of the tour, and hoping that they will survive it. They are professional, well trained, but not heroes, and they work in a hostile and paranoiac reality, facing a country and a culture that they do not understand. Every civilian can be a terrorist, shooting can start from behind any sand dune or from around street corner, any bag, any car, any corpse can hide a bomb, any situation can escalate into violence.

The situations in the film are not totally new for those who have seen previous films about the Middle East conflict, and especially the Israeli films Beaufort and Lebanon. As in ‘Beaufort’ the soldiers are equipped with all possible armors and technical gadgets that make them superior militarily, but their superiority is apparent, as victory is not at hand because the reality around does not allow for military victory.  Same as in ‘Lebanon’ most of the soldiers are disoriented, cannot find the familiar milestones in a reality that speaks and behaves differently than the logic of their human experience. ‘Hurt Locker’ is ‘Beaufort’ and ‘Lebanon’ re-written and directed with the skills of a Hollywood professional.

One of the best scenes in director Kathryn Bigelow‘s film puts the hero in the situation of trying to find the parents or relative of an Iraqi teenager killed by rebels, and whose body was bobby-trapped with explosives. In a typical Hollywood movie hero gesture  he tries to find ways to tell the story of his death. Iraq does not behave however according to the classic film rules, the tentative turns into misunderstanding and almost ends in tragedy, and only a hysterical escape of the hero and armed soldier saves his life. Dialog seems impossible, human relations are poisoned by the hate and mistrust injected by the political situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3D_ZwodU1Y

Do we get to understand the motivation of the character? Actually never. The invincible hero has a family and a life that expects him after the tour of duty. When he is back home his wife does not understand his war stories and would rather have him slice the vegetables and fix the roof, and his kid does not really know him. His only thrill has become the war, actually an addiction, the addiction of playing dices with fate. We never get an explanation of the hero’s personal evolution in this strong and subtle anti-war movie . His tragedy started long before the action of the film starts. He is a victim of war as all the other.

The film was nominated for the Best Film Oscar. If there was any cinema justice on Earth ‘Hurt Locker’ should win rather than ‘Avatar’. Yet, I do not think that it holds any chance in the competition with a film that made maybe one hundred times the money. More information and reviews about the film can be read at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/

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O placere regasita

Posted on February 7, 2010 by admin

Regasesc dupa multe decenii o placere pierduta a tineretii mele din Romania. Putine erau publicatiile care in anii 70, cei din jurul si mai ales de dupa mini-revolutia culturala mai aduceau cititorului informatie nedeformata si nepoluata de propaganda despre ceea ce se intampla in cultura mondiala. Dintre aceste putine era si Romania Literara care in anumite perioade a reusit sa pastreze in unele dinte materialele sale un nivel cultural si o probitate intelectuala care sa fie demne de traditia presei literare romanesti.

Dintre articolele publicate de Romania Literara a acelor ani imi atrageau atentia in mod deosebit cronicile de carte straina ale Feliciei Antip. Erau o fereastra deschisa spre literatura si cultura contemporana a epocii. Felicia Antip scria despre carti pe care nu le citisem si la care cu greu puteam sa imi imaginez ca voi putea avea acces liber vreodata. Cand cu ani, cu prea multi ani mai tarziu am ajuns intr-un loc in care accesul la literatura si cultura lumii nu era mai dificil decat deplasarea pana la prima biblioteca publica, amintirea articolelor ei mi-a fost ghid in labirintul fenomenal care mi se deschisese in fata subit, si lista de lectura obligatorie in orientare.

Astazi ‘Romania Literara’ intr-o noua serie si cu o noua redactie dupa inca una dintre multele schimbari care marcheaza istoria unui astfel de ziar a reluat sirul de cronici de carte straina al Feliciei Antip. Primele articole sunt accesibile deja pe Internet la:

http://www.romlit.ro/instanta_ramane_in_pronuntare

http://www.romlit.ro/coetzee_ca_j._c.

Nu pot decat sa ma bucur ca intelectualii din Romania de astazi si mai ales tinerii au din nou la indemana aceasta sursa de informatii scrisa inteligent si competent, cu dragoste fata de carte si respect fata de cultura si valorile sale. Altele sunt astazi problemele cu care se confrunta intelectualii romani si mai ales cei tineri. Nu cenzura este cea care bareaza accesul la cartea si cultura lumii, ci ceata deasa a confuziei si zgomotul asurzitor al contra-culturii ieftine. Mai mult ca oricand scrieri ca ale Feliciei Antip sunt azi necesare.

Dupa multi ani am avut ocazia sa o cunosc personal pe Felicia, intai in spatiul de discutii internetice, apoi si personal. Nu cred ca am spus de destule ori cuvantul care cred ca pentru ea este principala recompensa din partea cititorilor sai pentru cele scrise atunci, acum si pentru cele pe care le va mai scrie – ‘Multumesc’.

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Film – Das weisse Band (Michael Haneke – 2009)

Posted on February 7, 2010 by admin

The full title in German of the film is  ‘Das weisse Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte’ – ‘The White Ribbon – A German Children Story’ which could translate as ‘story for children’ or ‘story about children’. A story for children it certainly is not – Michael Haneke is the author of some of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen, and if there is some sense in age rating of movies, I would avoid showing his films to children under a certain age to protect them emotionally. It is a story about children, and the film can certainly be categorized in the genre of these horror stories where the Devil seems to be incarnated by innocence, and for sure a good one in the genre. Haneke knows how to create and maintain tension, how to film the real while suggesting the missing, how to pass the anxiety beyond the polish of civility. But the film tries to be much more.

The White Ribbon / Das Weisse Band

We are actually warned from start what the film is about. The story happens in the year prior to the first world war, in a rural area of Germany, where the social and moral system in place for centuries seems to have little chances to change. Peasants work the Baron’s fields and gardens, the priest and the Church defend the existing order and the morals, teacher and priests are not more than associates of the existing order. And yet strange things start to happen, some get obvious explanations in the human conflicts, other remain unsolved – accidents, deaths, violent deeds. As the story is told by the teacher of the village many years after the events we know exactly the location in time of the events, and we know that the storms of history will blow up the whole system and apparent tranquility of life soon. However, before war starts the life fabric seems to deteriorate from inside, the whole society and its institutions – church, medical practice, family fife – are deeply sick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUj9gDtA9HQ

The thesis of Michael Haneke is not far from the one of the American author Norman Mailer in his book ‘The Castle in the Forest’ (I wrote about it in Romanian at http://updateslive.blogspot.com/2007/12/castle-in-forest-de-norman-mailer.html). As Mailer goes back into the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler trying to discover the roots of evil in his family life and sins of his ancestors, Haneke takes a more general approach and tries to discover the roots of Nazism in the internal conflicts, the puritanism, the unspoken dark secrets of the family life of a constrained society. Obsession with order and discipline, education by punishment and guilt, tight guarding of the appearances of morality without deeds being true to principles do not necessarily lead to the order and quietness that is aimed, but long term can generate quite in the contrary. In a society where speaking the truth and revealing the evil at small scale are less important than keeping appearances of social order the freedom is in danger the evil can develop at bigger scale.

All this is spoken in few words by the off-screen commentary of the village teacher who tells the story, but is not explicit in the cinema language of the film. The impact of the film would not have been that deep without the master cinematographic treatment that Haneke applies to the story. First the black and white image fits perfect the world that is being described, and not only because its a world still lit by gas lamps, but also because the lack of colors reminds the classic German expressionist films that caught in the epoch contemporary or soon after the action of the film takes place the same type of angst. Then the acting is simply amazing. Many of the important characters in the film are kids or teenagers, and Haneke had to do a rigorous selection to select his best actors. he succeeded at utmost, I have seldom seen such a range of kids characters, each of them different, human, true. They seem to belong to their time, and to live through the painful coming of age, which is their growth into maturity in a world which becomes ugly.The tension between the not so innocent childhood they are going through and the adult world that tries to educate them by oppressing their feelings, punishing and inflicting them a permanent state of guilt is well acted and described beyond words.

Haneke avoids to make a harsh judgment. The whole fabric of human relations is not dark, we do have a love story between the teacher and nanny and we do have the innocent gesture of a kid trying to provide consolation to his father by making him a present that is the most important thing in his universe, which say that even in the darkest times and circumstances there is still hope that a flame of humanity is kept alive.  He does not completely solve the mystery of everything that has happened on screen. As in real life some facts remained unexplained, and judgments, even historical judgments need not be fully radical, and and good that such it is.

More details and comments can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149362/. The film took the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year and is a candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year, with good chances to win the prize.

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Jerusalemite Weaving

Posted on February 5, 2010 by admin

When I went out for a night walk near the Old City Walls I amused myself photographing a winter-stricken tree in the cold light of the Jerusalem night and of the moon. The results were quite interesting, so I decided to share them.

weaving 1

weaving 2

weaving 3

weaving 4

weaving 5

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Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem

Posted on February 4, 2010 by admin

Jerusalem, Notre Dame Center

Almost everything is Jerusalem is about history.

Almost everything in Jerusalem is about faith.

Almost everything in Jerusalem is about beauty.

The Notre Dame Center at the end of the Jaffa Road and near the walls of the Old City and the Flowers Gate is no exception. The center hosted the seminar organized by the Forum for Liberal Thinking last weekend which Liliana and me attended.

The history of the Center goes back to the end of the 19th century, when at the time of the end of the Ottoman rule over the Holy Land the European powers of the time were establishing pilgrimage centers, educational and social institutions, and some of them were settling in small communities, trying to establish a presence in the most famous city in history. A Catholic congregation called the French Assumptions started to bring pilgrims and decided to establish a center on land situated near the French Hospital, by the walls of the Old City. Started in 1885 the building was completed and inaugurated in 1904, embellished with a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, a replica of a Parisian statue.

Jerusalem Notre Dame Center in the past century

The building could host 500 people, it served as seminar, hostel, and center of studies for almost half a century. In 1948 during the Israel Independence war the area was on the front line of the fights between the Jewish Haganah and the Arab Legion troops. I did a research in the New York Time reports archive and the result was fascinating – between May and August 1948 the control of the building changed several times. The cease fire after the war drew the separation line just near  the building, with the Center in the Israeli area and the Old City in the Jordanian area of the divided city of Jerusalem as it was between 1948 and 1967. The wing facing the Old City was badly damaged in the war, and for some time it was used by the army because of its strategic position.

top of the building with the Virgin Mary statue

Only a few years after the 1967 war the Holy See took over the responsibility of the place, and started the rennovation work that brought the building to its present beauty. A conference center was added, and a modern hotel opened. Since 2004 the care and running of the center was assigned to the Legionaries or Christ priests. Pope Benedict XVI stayed here during his visit last year.

 

conference center

It is a beautiful building by day and also by night, when it is illuminated same as the walls of the Old City on the other side of the street.

Jerusalem Notre Dame Center by night

The interior is decorated in a very special style, with stone walls and arcades reminding the medieval monasteries in Europe. Modern religious paintings are decorating the hallways and the rooms, many of them are really beautiful. The rooms are simple but very clean and well maintained, all the basic equipment that you can find in a good hotel is there. What is missing is the distraction of a TV set (so I could start reading a good book), on the other hand wireless Internet connectivity is available.

hotel reception

hotel hallway - first floor

hallway 3rd floor

There is a chef restaurant in the hotel named ‘La Rotisserie’ – we had lunch there and it was excellent. Try the Latrun Sauvignon Blanc if you are in mood for white wine, it’s good, unexpensive, and you cannot find it in many places in Israel.

La Rotisserie Restaurant

The center has a large and beautiful church.

the church

A permanent exhibition is dedicated to the Shroud of Turin. If you have not seen the documentary or read the National Geographical article a few years ago, or even if you did it it’s a good opportunity to learn more about one of the most venerated and most controversial relics in the history of the Christianity, said to be the burial shroud of Jesus.

Exhibition of the Shroud of Turin

In the reception hall of the center there is another exhibition which deals with the project of the Magdala Center that the same congregation is building on the shores of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). Our group received explanations (in Hebrew!) from father Kelly. Of Irish origins, he is one of the leaders of the group of priests who live and work in this place. During the construction works an important archeological discovery was made in the place – a synagogue dating from the period before the Jewish revolt in year 66. A menorah representation carved in stone was one of the findings, which is unique for the Jewish synagogues of the period, and may have been a representation of the big menorah in the Temple in Jerusalem.

father Kelly talking about the Magdala Center

from the exhibition about the Magdala Center

History. Faith. Beauty.

Jerusalem.

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Semnal Editorial: La anul, la Ierusalim, o carte, de Angela Furtuna

Posted on February 4, 2010 by admin

A apărut volumul intitulat La anul, la Ierusalim, o carte, – Maree şi memorii culturale – Vol. I, de Angela FURTUNĂ, editat de Biblioteca Bucovinei “I.G.Sbiera”, 2009, cu o copertă de Devis GREBU, 350 p.

Cartea conţine capitole de dialoguri şi eseuri, note de lectură, analize şi meditaţii vizând paradigmele culturale şi politice europene, relaţiile de comunicare dintre românism, europenism şi iudaism, teme inedite din istoria mentalităţilor culturale. O secţiune aparte a volumului aduce un omagiu limbii ebraice, simbolismului şi expresivităţii sale lirice, pe linia articulării dintre noetică şi noematică.

Informaţia vastă, abordarea cărturărească şi analiza aplicată oferă, în acest prim volum, răspunsuri la întrebarea: de ce una din cele mai mari pierderi înregistrate de România şi Europa ultimului secol a fost tezaurul culturii iudaice.
Volumul este aşezat sub auspiciile reflecţiei lucide a mai multor gânditori, întemeindu-se pe raţiune, înţelepciune, moderaţie şi originalitate în interpretarea istoriei culturii şi civilizaţiei de joncţiune dintre iudaism şi europenism, respectiv românism:

Te duci şi citeşti ce-au scris şi alţii, în alte culturi, fără presiunea utilităţii imediate, dar mereu atent. Trebuie să aştepţi activ ideile noi, căutând peste tot…(Moshe Idel).

Popoarele între dânsele nu sunt decât ramurile unuia şi aceluiaşi copac şi, astfel, mi-a fost dat să-mi găsesc patria în trecutul neamului meu şi, totdeodată, în mijlocul poporului în care m-am născut…(Moses Gaster).

Realitatea continuă să fie ocultată şi ignorată…

(Vladimir Tismăneanu).

…Şi să mă culegi din nou din risipirea în care m-am risipit în mii de bucăţele, când, îndepărtându-mă de Tine Unul, am dispărut fărâmiţat în multe…(Sfântul Augustin).

„Nu călătoresc fără de cărţi nici pe timp de pace, nici pe vreme de război, […] Ele sunt cea mai bună muniţie pe care am găsit-o pentru această călătorie omenească” (Michel de Montaigne, Essais, livre III, 2).

„Memoria, iar nu aşteptarea, este cea care dă unitate şi plenitudine experienţei umane” (Hannah Arendt).

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‘Ajami’ goes to the Oscars

Posted on February 3, 2010 by admin

Frankly speaking I did not expect it. I was surprised even when ‘Ajami‘ made it for the short list, but here we are. For the third year in a row an Israeli film makes it in the final five for the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. It’s not about the Lebanon war this time, although it does deal in its own way with the Israeli-Arab conflict. 90% spoken in Arabic. Co-directed by two young directors, one Arab, one Jewish at their first feature film, and set in the mixed Jewish and Arab city of Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, the film is first of all a smartly written story, sometimes so smart it is not easy to watch, and also a piece of the Israeli and Middle Eastern puzzle that is not visible for many of the Israelis. I liked it, but I was not enthusiastic when I saw first the film, and I wrote about it in my other piece already published on the blog.

On Friday I hope to go and see what is said to bee the great rival of ‘Ajami’ in the race, Michael Haneke‘s Das Weisse Band. It already grabbed La Palme d’Or. We’ll see.

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Film: ‘Burn After Reading’ – (Coen brothers, 2008)

Posted on February 1, 2010 by admin

There is one mis-perception that this film fixed in my mind – there are not really funny films about stupid people. Stupid people are … well … stupid, their behavior is by definition subject of easy jokes, so for smart and educated audiences laughing at stupid people comes together with a feeling of guilt. No fun.

What makes ‘Burn After Reading’ different then? I think that one of the reasons is that this is not only a comedy about stupid people, but more about a stupid people in a stupid system. The Coens attack, catch, and dissect a lot of holy cows of the American political system (the CIA, the government secrecy), morality (matrimonial fidelity), social habits (Internet dating, the gym) and national obsessions (the shrink, the divorce lawyer, the plastic surgery). Almost nothing that is a cliche in the average American behavior escapes becoming a victim of their cynical look.

While the script has certainly its role in the success of the comic experience, the story by itself does not try to be more than a funny chain of coincidences that hit a bunch of characters that act according to their immediate instincts and bad planning, something that brings us back to the time of the great comedies in the 30s and 40s of the past century. It would have been of no special effect without the master story telling skills of the Coen brothers, which pace their gags and laughs in the 96 minutes of screening (low figures well below recent Hollywood average).

Overall however the film succeeds through the perfect casting, and the brilliant manner by which the Coens succeed to bring the best out of their actors. John Malkovitch is an actor of all seasons, one of those that brings his personality in any role he does. Not here, where he melds into the alcoholic spy clerk, who loses his useless job and wife, hates the whole world and nobody cares about him, his life, or even about him losing the secrets he was supposed to have learned during his career. Frances McDormand who was the Coen’s unexpected heroine in ‘Fargo’ is back in the role of a gym clerk who does not hesitate to betray her country to finance plastic surgery, but worries even more being in time at her workplace after leaving the Russian embassy. Brad Pitt is her gym trainer companion, looking flat-minded and younger than in the teen years of his role as Benjamin Button.

And then George Clooney. I feel every time that I write about Clooney in the last few years that I need to apologize (to myself of course, as he does not read me or care) for having underestimated his talent and having considered him yet another TV actor and beautiful face. His work as a director and his last performances as an actor are better and better. Here he is superb, the happy husband who cheats his wife with Internet dates without knowing the reason, the involuntary and hysterical killer who associates with other stupid people in senseless actions.

Yes, it’s a cynical view of the world – but hey, this is entertainment, these are the Coen brothers. I am only worried a bit as I heard that the subject of their last film are the Jews!

More information about the film and reviews can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/.

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Viata lui Solomon Marcovici

Posted on February 1, 2010 by admin
Solomon Marcovici Large(2)
Prietena mea Delia Marc mi-a trimis o contributie exceptionala – o prezentare ilustrata cu documente autentice a vietii fratelui bunicului ei Solomon Marcovici, cazut pe front in primul razboi mondial.
Fie-i memoria binecuvantata.
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