La Traviata in front of Masada? It was a mountainous achievement
calm, another loses his home, another a loved one, another his own life.
My husband and I were thinking of moving to Israel for a while and finally decided upon it a year ago. Many of our acquaintances knew about this and all reacted alike: “Israel? But there’s a war going on!” Recently a friend of mine asked me if we really do plan on going, and when I said, “Yes, of course,” she responded with the usual — “But there’s a war going on there!” I laughed at the irony, because here I am, and the war has come to us.
I don’t know who here is right and who is at fault, who is the hero and who is the enemy. I only know that if you don’t want to kill or be killed, then this is no place for you.
We Jews find ourselves in a difficult situation here — we remain in the margins of this war between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces, but we live here and suffer this along with everyone else. And in the meanwhile, we know in the back of our minds that, any minute, we might be blamed for everything.
But I suppose we have This article is reprinted with the permission of Tablet Magazine, tabletmag. com, the online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. The letters were translated from Russian by Avital Chizhik
IT WAS Masada, but not as we knew it. The entrance to Israel’s desert fortress was transformed into a Parisian boulevard complete with grand, candelabra-lit restaurants, little neighbourhood boulangeries and multiple Arcs de Triomphes through which 50,000 people promenaded.
La Traviata was not as obvious a choice as last year’s Carmen, with its rustic setting — it was an audacious gamble to stage an intimate, urban love story in the most isolated spot in biblical history. But Violetta herself describes Paris as “this teeming desert”, and the mountain was an impressive new character, looming behind a neon-lit Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge. It was moulded into everything from the clock of marching time to the doomed heroine’s final chest X-ray via monumental projections.
In its fourth year, opera at Masada is now a fixture on the international outdoor festival circuit, bringing a new wave of high-value tourists in its wake: “Filling this niche was vital to growing visitor numbers,” explained Sara Salansky of the Ministry of Tourism. “It’s all about niches — we had thousands in Tel Aviv for Gay Pride and tens of thousands for the opera at the Dead Sea.”
Dov Litvinoff, the regional mayor, was flushed with the event’s success: “It’s had a huge impact on the economics of the region. All the hotels are full, not just at the Dead Sea but all the way from Arad to Jerusalem. This is the biggest open-air cultural event in Israel.”
Mr Litvinoff was one of the first in the country to buy into the vision of Israeli Opera director Hanna Munitz, who climbed a metaphorical mountain — as tough as hiking up Masada itself — before she initiated her first opera here four years ago:
“It’s been 10 years since I imagined it as an event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. Initially, I couldn’t persuade the government. I persisted, and now they get it. We have proven we can sell out 40,000 seats — not bad for a country with no tradition of opera! It’s only in the last four years tourists have come to Israel for culture.”
Having had their differences, the Opera and Ministry are now uniting to keep those tens of thousands of high-value visitors in the country for more than a week. For the first time, the company continued to Akko for a weekend-long Mozartfest from June 19-21. They performed Don Giovanni, Mozart’s Requiem and the Magic Flute against the backdrop of the ancient sea walls, punctuated with a mediaeval feast in the Crusaders’ Hall.
Next year in Jerusalem? The Citadel would make a fantastic setting for Aida, even if they couldn’t manage the live elephants.