Some years in the making and previously presented in different creative formations at Roulette and the 14th Street Y, State of the Jews—the first English-language opera about Herzl—has found a new stage this January at Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center, directed by Omer Ben Saadia. Additional material was showcased this month at the exhibit All About Herzl at the neighboring Herbert & Eileen Bernard Museum, with original Herzl documents, ephemera, and artifacts. Watch the live stream here.
State of the Jews puts history on the dramatic terrain of human connection. With Herzl "coming to understand that Antisemitism would be neither defeated nor cured, leaving the establishment of a Jewish state as the only route to safety" (ibid.), the opera touches on the many open-ended questions about Herzl's Utopia, the later reality of a Jewish State, and Antisemitism in past and present times.
Alex Weiser, a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, created the opera in collaboration with Ben Kaplan, who wrote the opera's libretto, bringing together its vocalists and the St. Luke Chamber Ensemble with the Tempel Emanu-El choir. Conceived as a collaborative endeavor through the American Opera Project that supports the creation of new lyrical theater, both also hold directorial positions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Weiser as its Director of Public Programs, and Kaplan as its Director of Education.
Kaplan describes his interest in" "historically informed dramatic works that chronicle turning points in history.”The production achieves that goal without becoming overly pedantic.
Alex Weiser - Photo Credit: Jennifer Rodewald
The narrative unfolds in two acts, following simple stage settings, with scenes being driven by the chorus. Among several sets, there is a long Shabbat table set for dinner to celebrate Herzl's visit to Russia, Herzl's home with a half-empty bedside, and the boardroom of the Zionist Congress. Photo below: Ben Kaplan
State of the Jews depicts the last phase of the life of Austro-Hungarian Theodor Herzl, who died of heart disease at the age of forty-four in 1904.
The timeline of events takes artistic freedom on stage, looking back on some of the important highlights of his life. Events, like the young couple's honeymoon spent in Paris, with diverging dreams of their future, the publication of his book, not his first one - Der Judenstaat (1896) giving the opera its title, but Alteuland from (1902), and the Dreyfuss affair. In January of 1895, as a correspondent for the liberal Vienna newspaper New Free Press in Paris, Theodor Herzl witnessed Antisemitism on display when Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer falsely accused of espionage and banished to an island prison, was divested of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony, as a mob shouted, "Death to the Jews."
Herzl did not invent Zionism, an ideological response to the nationalist ideas of the 19th century. Like Moses, leading the biblical Jews out of slavery in Egypt, he did not witness the realization of his life's mission, the creation of a Jewish homeland.
Reminiscent of the 19th-century Jewish Haskalah Renaissance of political grassroots theater productions, the characters come to life through their ongoing arguments rather than offering specific solutions. As Weiser notes, State of the Jews offers "a magnifying glass on this fascinating story, probing the emotions and motivations of each of the characters with curiosity and sympathy."
Mezzo-soprano Kristin Gornstein powerfully portrays Herzl’s wife, Julie. With great gusto, she voices vehemently opposing views to Herzl's—the regal baritone Gideon Dabi—and his steady-sounding mission that strains their marriage. The events outside their control and their opposing views have changed the premise of their life and existence, causing an emotional rift beyond repair; Julie, who does not believe in leaving her home, only endorses her estranged husband's cause after his passing.
Portraying Herzl's dream of a Jewish homeland, which only became a reality after the horrors of the Holocaust came to light, the opera eerily foreshadows the events to come, which Herzl, even in his most utopic writing, could never have foreseen.
Only half a century after Herzl pleaded in vain with Pope Pius VI (portrayed by tenor Alfred Dreyfus) for the support of a Jewish state, the United Nations inaugurated the Jewish State of Israel in 1948.
However, Herzl's tireless activism and his initiation of the first Zionist Organization at the World Jewish Congress in Basel (1897) helped lay the groundwork for the foundation of the modern democratic state.
The production approaches Herzl's enigmatic leadership and the shifting premises of Jewish life between Antisemitic pogroms and the European Enlightenment, partly as a hero and partly as an antihero, with lively debate. There is ample room for self-doubt and controversy among followers and critics, led by Herzl's wife, who is drawn into her husband's pursuits against her convictions. This leaves her penniless, alone, and with aspirations that will tragically prove false.
"We are Austrian, Franz Joseph will protect us… [I would not want to leave] if Moses himself would put me on a train to go to this godforsaken desert," she insisted earlier, evoking the association with trains of the Nazis transporting Jews to their deaths.
While Julie believes, "like so many others of her time, " as Weiser points out, in the loyalty of the people of her beloved Vienna, turmoil-like flashes of Joseph Haydn's Kaiserhymne resonate from the skillful St. Luke'ss chamber ensemble. Under Emily Senturia, piano, bass, and clarinet add a range of, at times, jarring harmonies to the string quartet's core.
Akin to Ravel's La Valse, the scene's music foreshadows the renowned text edition of the German national anthem in 1922: Deutschland, Deutschland über alles (Germany, Germany above everything else) which was later retained in the anthem of Nazi Germany that chillingly shifted its tune into sinister meaning.
After being enthusiastically received on his journey to Russia, Herzl weighed the options, which led him to present an offer by British Colonial Secretary Chamberlain during the Sixth World Jewish Congress, suggesting a preliminary settlement in Uganda. But how can one not counter with Psalm 137, the lament of the Jews taken into the Babylonian Exile: "If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget?"
Looking hopefully into the future, the young folks of Vilna proclaim their Zionist spirit with Hatikvah, Israel's anthem, albeit here in its original text by the Yiddish poet Naftali Herz Imber, "Lashuv le'eretz zavoten" (to return to the land of our forefathers).
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the UN calendar, the second recurring one after October 7, 2023, with its onslaught of international hate and only hesitant efforts to show empathy, Jews around the world argue against Antisemitism again in protest with a world having to insist on their rightful place in it.
These events highlight the historical past, with the meaning of a Jewish Homeland, the definition of Zionism, and what Judaism means individually. With a strong vision like Herzl's, the minute percentage of the population that exists as its Jewish minority is facing up to Antisemitism, no matter if that identity means strict religious observance, an occasional visit to the Jewish Museum, or a bagel shmear.
The mesmerized audience sits quietly. Opera inflicts emotions. The atmosphere feels haunting, as the subdued context and timbres of Weiser's choral inflections portray historical events of the past century, whose complex challenges eerily draw out their strong presence and timely relevance in the synagogue made popular by assimilated American Jews on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
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