For the past two years, the Stroum Jewish Community Center has been enlightening opera lovers and novices alike as to the influence of Jewish themes, writers, and performance in the world of opera with its “Opera Sings the Soul” lecture series. But now the JCC has decided to broaden the program to include other art forms as well. The new series is called “The Jewish Touch,” and will focus on Jewish connections to film, theater, dance, visual art, and a variety of other musical genres as well as opera.
The Jewish Touch kicked off Oct. 16 with a session on Bernard Herrmann, a film composer who wrote for many of Alfred Hitchcock’s works.
According to Stroum JCC adult programs coordinator Roni Antebi, program organizers decided to shift the focus of the lecture series in an effort to attract a broader audience.
“We hope a greater variety of topics will engage the community in a cultural discussion and cultural growth,” Antebi wrote in an e-mail to JTNews.
Volunteer coordinator Joyce Rivkin also noted that the Opera Sings the Soul series had more or less exhausted topics of Jewish-opera connection.
“We were running a little short of material,” she said.
The Jewish Touch isn’t getting out of the opera game completely, however. The next event, scheduled for Dec. 1, is about Verdi’s opera, “Nabucco” which tells the story of the Jewish captivity in Babylon. The lecture is inspired by the Seattle Opera’s upcoming series of Verdi productions, including La Traviata, Il Trovatore, and Falstaff. Rivkin said that in this case, The Jewish Touch provides an opportunity for attendees to learn about both a Jewish connection to opera, as well as one of Verdi’s less famous compositions.
“Most people probably don’t know that Verdi wrote an opera about Jews in Babylon,” Rivkin said. “It’s not one that’s performed very often.”
Rivkin noted that although the lecture series focuses on Jewish contributions to the arts, the events are open to the public and non-Jews are more than welcome to attend. The lecture on Hermann drew about 25 participants.
After the Verdi lecture, The Jewish Touch will move back toward a focus on film, with a Jan. 24 screening of the 1930s film Mirele Efros, a movie often referred to as “the Yiddish Queen Lear,” followed by a lecture on Yiddish cinema.
“There’s been a lot of interest in that one because it’s so rarely shown,” Rivkin said. “A lot of people who may remember it from the past are eager to see it again.”
The subjects for Jewish Touch lectures are often determined by whom organizers can get to come speak at the events.
For example, Seattle Symphony conductor Adam Stern, the first speaker in The Jewish Touch series, chose the topic of Bernard Herrmann’s work himself.
“When I told him about the theme of The Jewish Touch, he right away suggested Hermann,” Rivkin said.
Finding speakers isn’t always so straightforward, however.
When Jewish Touch organizers decided they wanted to show Mirele Efros, Rivkin was initially unsure where to get a Yiddish expert to come talk about the film. After some searching, she discovered the Seattle Yiddish Group. Club president Murray Meld then suggested to Rivkin that she ask Barbara Henry, an instructor at the University of Washington in the Russian studies department who agreed to give the lecture.
The Stroum JCC had been hosting its Opera Sings the Soul lectures once every six weeks. Antebi said that The Jewish Touch program will keep that schedule. A complete list of topics for 2010 hasn’t been pinned down yet, but Rivkin said she and her fellow organizers are considering lectures on cantorial music and a collaborative event with the Seattle symphony.