Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Opera Comes to Kiryat Malachi


The Israeli Opera each year reaches out to several outlying Israeli communities to bring their residents a taste of opera.

This year, they chose Kiryat Malachi as one of the communities where they would perform an abbreviated opera together with local residents.  Because of the Art City Program, one of the programs that our TIPS partnership, the Israeli opera had a group in Kiryat Malachi that it could work with, including the Tzuza dancers and local singers.

They put on an "abridged" version of "The Magic Flute," in one act lasting an hour and twenty minutes.  Eight of the nine major performers were professionals from the opera.  The queen in the red costume was from Kiryat Malachi.  She did not sing, but she acted well.

Over 1500 people from the town were able to see the opera during the four performances, Jan. 6-8.  The two evening performances were Jan. 6-7 and two daytime performances were on Jan. 8th.

There were signs all over town advertising the opera.
Before the opera, some of the members of the Israel Steering Committee gathered at Cafe Joe's.
The auditorium was full for the opera.  The opera had been translated into Hebrew by Ehud Manor.  He tried to keep the meter and rhyming of the original lyrics.  The words appeared above the stage for the songs (not the dialog).
The Magic Flute, Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
I'll include a lot of pictures that I took so that the readers of this blog can get an feeling for the performance.  We could not take photos with flash, so the pictures are not of great quality but they give a good idea of the performance.
The Orchestra
The costuming was amazing.  Look at the fingers of the dancers in the first scene of the opera.
The Prince is on the left
Second scene:
Three witches, all wanting to stay with prince
Papageno bragging (exaggerating/lying?)Papageno is a bird catcher who longs for a wife
Eddi and Dalia Yosef's daughter


In the third scene, the 3 witches "close" Papageno's mouth because of his bragging and lying.

Fourth scene:
The Queen of the Night makes her entrance
Look at the amazing headgear/hats!
Prince Tamino gets the magic flute
Dancers in hoop skirts enter
Papageno has gotten his voice back after promising not to lie again.
Adult and Ethiopian Girls' choir sing together
Note one of the women from the first group of Ethnic Flavors cooks to travel to the U.S., Mazal Caravani, is in the center of the photo!

Another scene:
Pamina, daughter of Queen of the Night
Pamina is soon captured by evil forces.  Tamino has heard of her beauty and searches for her during the opera.
Pamina's capture

Male dancers in another costume with huge heads, dancing in squatting position
The animal head gear on the dancers below was amazing.  The pictures below are all in chronological order.



Papegeno gets magical musical chimes and charms evil guys

Musicians enter, including 3 members of bands in Kiryat Malachi, adult singers,  and Ethiopian teen singing group.
The actress in red had a big role.  She is from KM









Papageno meets the love of his life

Nearing the climax....

Bows:

 









The end to a wonderful evening!

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