The JCC Julius Chajes/Encore Concert Series

and Temple Israel invite you to join us for a Purim

VSz

otertainment

Mixed Media

concert with internationally-acclaimed performer

News Reviews

A Long Weill Coming

Debbie Friedman

Sunday, March 19 • 3:30p .m.

D. Dan and Betty Kahn Building
Eugene and Marcia Applebaum Jewish Community Campus
Marion and David Handleman khan and Auditorium
6600 West Maple Road • West Bloomfield
JCC and Temple Israel Members: $8 Non-members: $10

America's most popular singer-songwriter of contemporary
Jewish music appeals to people of all ages. With Debbie as
their guide, a wide audience of Jews comes together to
embrace the message of the Rabbis of old. This well-known
Jewish singer will do a Purim family show.

Q.? For tickets call, (248) 661-7649.

DOUBLETREE

GUEST SUITES'

DITEOIT • SOUTHFIELD

JN

3/17

2000

88

This series funded in part by:

Natalie and Manny Charach Endowment Fund, Irwin and Sadie Cohn Endowment
for the Arts, DeRoy Testamentary Foundation, Boaz Siegel Culture Fund,
Renard L. Maas Foundation, Hiram Dorfman and David Engelbert, Trustees and
Keffy Orbach Family Concert Fund

betrayal depicted before them.
The opera is the result of a more
Roy Smith grew up speaking in
than
60-year-old collaboration
tongues. This month, he wore a
between
Weill, novelist Franz Werfel
yarmulke.
and
theater
director Max Reinhardt.
Smith, the son of a Pentecostal
When it was staged for a brief time
minister from Virginia, is not con-
on Broadway in 1937 — in English
verting to Judaism. But he's leading a
translation — it lost money despite
congregation of his own — on stage
great
reviews and packed houses. It
as the rabbi in the revival of the Kurt
then
disappeared.
Weill opera The Eternal Road, which
. The opera was revived last spring
just ended its run at the Brooklyn
for
the first time since 1937 in
Academy of Music. It will travel to
Chemnitz,
Germany, launching the
the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv
international Weill
next month and to Expo 2000 in
centenary. Weill
Kurt Weill: His
Hanover, Germany, in July.
had fled Nazi
opera "The Eternal
"My father was very excited
Germany along
Road" makes a
about this," said Smith, 34. "I
with
many other
comeback after more
actually am able to take some of
artists.
than
60
years
of
the things I have seen my father
The production
oblivion.
do and put it into my characteri-
at
the
Brooklyn
zation of the rabbi — in the way
Academy
of Music
he teaches and speaks to the congre-
marked
the
first
time
the
show
had
gation, the way he tries to calm the
been
performed
in
its
original
people down, even the way he walks."
German in the United States. (It was
The role is a central one in the
performed
here last year in an
opera, which tells a fictional story of
English-language
version.)
frightened German Jews during the
Smith,
who
now
lives in Chicago,
1930s. Hiding in their synagogue,
will
perform
the
role
again in Tel Aviv
they watch biblical scenes of faith and
on April 22, 24 and
27, during Passover
and just after the
Easter holiday.
"I have never
been to Israel
before," said Smith.
His parents will
come to hear him.
sing. "They were in
the Holy Land
about 15 years ago,
and they think it
might be their last
chance to go
again."
During the audi-
tion for the opera,
Smith was asked
how his father, a
Christian and strict
fundamentalist,
would feel about
his son taking on
the role of a rabbi.
"My father was
really very excited,"
Smith recalled.
Though Smith
has performed in
concerts in syna-
gogues in Chicago,
and once even