‘L’absence’ fills the contemporary Jewish music void
Opening the Munich Biennale, the composer of an avant-garde opera written by Jews and directed by an Iranian takes objection to those who call it a ‘Holocaust Opera’
This year’s Munich Biennale opens May 3 with a rather unlikely choice: “L’absence,” an avant-garde opera composed by a young German-Jewish woman, who set her unsettling music to a libretto dealing with the Holocaust, written by a secular Jew from Cairo. The opera is performed by a mixed team of German and Israeli performers, led by a Muslim Iranian-German director.
However, perhaps that’s just what one should expect from modern Germany and the Munich Biennale, the renowned international festival for contemporary music theater.
“L’absence” tells the dramatic story of a Jewish couple, Sarah and Yukel, who are devoted to each other, and yet appear to be separated — something very much drawn on in the stage’s set, which often includes semi-translucent partitions. Deeply tormented by her sufferings during the Holocaust, Sarah withdraws from reality into her own separate space. Her beloved Yukel tries to reach out to her but all his attempts are in vain.
The opera is based on the intriguing “Livre des Questions” (Book of Questions) by Jewish-Egyptian-French writer Edmond Jabès (1912-1991) who was born and raised as a secular Jew in Cairo. The Suez Crisis dramatically altered the situation of Jewish life in Egypt, prompting Jabès to flee to Paris in 1957.
This particular confrontation with his own Jewish identity initiated his study of Jewish sources such as the Torah, the Talmud and Kabbalistic writings. Consequently, the exile triggered his very personal quest for an essential meaning of “being Jewish,” in his understanding also a metaphor for “being a stranger.” Driven by his inner struggles and questions, Jabès jotted down his thoughts during his daily commute on the Paris Metro. The impressive result was his seven-part “Book of Questions” published in Paris in 1963, which was widely discussed by such prominent contemporary thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Massimo Cacciari.
Jabès declared the act of writing to be essential and life sustaining and referred to the book itself as a place for those who do not actually have a physical place in this world. In his writings, Jabès also alluded to Jewish mystical ideas and partially adapted the open and dynamic form of the traditional Talmudic discourse.
“While reading Jabès’s ‘Book of Questions,’ I felt very strongly that I should set parts of this wonderful text to music and write an opera,” explains composer Sarah Nemtsov, who often reflects on her own Jewish identity through her music. “L’absence” is not her first work closely dealing with Jewish literature. In a previous chamber opera “Herzland” (Land of the Heart), Nemtsov set to music excerpts from the poetic and moving letters that poet Paul Celan and his wife, artist Gisèle Lestrange, exchanged over several years.
Sarah Nemtsov’s musical style is strictly contemporary. Nevertheless, the composer includes conceptual references to synagogue melodies and Eastern-European Klezmer music. “L’absence” is based on a set of twelve scales including four traditional Ashkenazi modes of the synagogue, the Shteygers. The traditional cantillation of the Torah was her inspiration for the composition of Sarah’s and Yukel’s parts. The distinctive rhythmic patterns of Klezmer genres such as the Hora also left their imprint on Nemtsov’s music.
However, these layers of Jewish music within her composition remain somewhat hidden and are not necessarily audible.
‘Even if the audience might not be able to retrieve all of these layers, it was important to me to include them as a musical reminiscence to my own Jewish identity’
“Even if the audience might not be able to retrieve all of these layers, it was important to me to include them as a musical reminiscence to my own Jewish identity,” explains Nemtsov. “In this opera, the Jewish theme is particularly important to me. One might even call it a Jewish opera, but I am taking exception to the label ‘Holocaust Opera’ that some journalists have used deliberately… In my understanding, the Shoah is just one part of this story but not necessarily the main focus.”
Nemtsov’s work represents a notable new trend in Jewish culture in Germany. Today, voicing contemporary Jewish concerns by means of music, literature, film and art goes beyond the mere reflection of the aftermath of the Shoah. One might even call it a self-determined revival of contemporary Jewish culture in Germany fighting existing clichés.
“People easily peg me as a Jewish composer who writes modern Klezmer music,” says Nemtsov. “Sometimes, I choose Jewish topics, but my music is always strictly avant-garde.”
Biennale director Peter Ruzicka invited Jasmin Solfaghari, an experienced German-Iranian director, to direct the premiere. Solfaghari grew up in Tehran but as a child moved to Germany with her family. With her Muslim background on the one hand and her German identity on the other, she approached “L’absence” and its intrinsic Jewish historical and philosophical references with great care and respect.
“I read up on the vast Jewish background of this work — which was overwelming,” says Solfaghari. “At a certain point, I had to let go and start working on my interpretation.
‘During the rehearsals with the mixed team of Israeli and German singers participating in this production, we engaged in lively discussions’
“During the rehearsals with the mixed team of Israeli and German singers participating in this production, we engaged in lively discussions and it was a wonderful atmosphere of mutual learning on many levels.”
This isn’t the director’s first brush with Israelis. Last year, Solfaghari was invited to conduct workshops at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Opera Studio in Tel Aviv, the first time she had set foot in the Middle East since leaving Iran as a child.
According to Solfaghari, the Israeli Middle Eastern landscape evoked vivid memories of her childhood in Tehran and she was taken by the intensity of Jerusalem’s Old City and its holy sites.
She is equally enthusiastic about “L’absence.”
“Sarah Nemtsov’s opera is very deep and inspiring,” says Solfaghari. “The theme is of great importance for a German audience.”
The Times of Israel Community.