Mixed Media

News & Reviews

Come To The Cabaret

Open for Lund) artO Dinner 7 -Days

4189 On:NH. 6 Lake Roao
Orcbor6 Lake

5/ 7
1999

248 - 865 - 0000
50):: 9 48 863 0020

The title suggests something for-
eign, but the content actually stays
close to home.
"Romania, Romania: From 2nd
Avenue to Broadway" is a cabaret con-
cert that combines Yiddish favorites, hit
show tunes and opera pieces performed
by four cantors, two of them local, and
a cantor's wife, who has made her own
mark on secular stages.
The dinner program, planned for
Saturday, May 15, at Temple Beth El,
gets its name from Sammy's Romanian
Restaurant in New York, a kosher-style
eatery that features musical entertain-
ment in Yiddish and English.
Performers include Cantor Stephen
Dubov of Beth El; Cantor Harold
Orbach, Temple Israel; Cantor Judith
Seplowin, Temple Congregation
Shomer Emunim of Ohio; Cantor
Robert Abelson, Temple Israel of New
York, and his wife Carol Abelson, a sec-
ular soprano.
Only Carol Abelson has not per-
formed previously in Michigan.
"We'll have a real mixture with
Zina Shaykhet at the keyboard," says
Dubov. He's a veteran of nine years of
Broadway, television, film and concert
experience, including appearances
with the New Orleans Opera and the
Louisiana Philharmonic. "Proceeds
will go for more music programs of
this type," he adds.
His West Bloomfield neighbor
Orbach has sung in concerts world-
wide and appeared in the world pre-
miere performances of Bernstein's
Dybbuk Variations, Brubeck's Gates of
Justice and Chajes' Out of the Desert.
Cantor Abelson, who recently per-
formed at Temple Israel in the musical
drama Isaac Levi, has appeared with his
wife at the celebrated Merkin Hall and
the informal Sammy's. On the faculty at
the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew
Union College, he was a member of the
New York City Opera and appeared with
symphonies and in the hit Jewish musi-
cal Those Were the Days.
"My husband had a great influence
on me because he does classical and
Yiddish songs," says Carol Abelson,
Top to bottom: Soprano
who has performed with opera compa-
Carol Abelson, Cantor
nies in San Francisco, Chicago, Santa
Robert Abelson and Cantor
Fe, Washington, Houston, Fort Worth
Judith Seplowin join Temple Beth El's
and New Orleans.
Cantor Stephen Dubov anti Temple
Seplowin's history in Michigan is
Israel's Cantor Harold Orbach in a..
not
especially liturgical. She appeared
dinner concert on May 15.
The
1940s Radio Hour for the Attic
in