Showtime: Beethoven’s last for starters

The Israeli Opera’s new season of liturgical concerts will open with two performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No.

By BARRY DAVIS
Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra (photo credit: Courtesy)
Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Beethoven’s last for starters
The Israeli Opera’s new season of liturgical concerts will open next week with two performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No.
9 at the Opera House in Tel Aviv and the Jerusalem Theater on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The program also includes Am Rande der Nacht by 59-year-old Belgian composer and organist Bernard Foccroulle, which comprises a cycle of seven lieder for soprano, choir and orchestra, based on poems by Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The vocal ensemble’s place will be filled by the Chamber Choir of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, conducted by Stanley Sperber.
The liturgical season features vocalists from the Israeli Opera, together with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra IBA (JSO), with JSO musical director Frederic Chaslin on the conductor’s podium.
The singers include soprano Idit Zamir, mezzo-soprano Ayala Zimbler, tenor Guy Mannheim and bass baritone Vladimir Braun.
For tickets and more information: (03) 692-7777 and www.israelopera.co.il, 1-700-704-000 and www.jso.co.il
Jingle bells
With the approach of Christmas, the Latrun Monastery and the St. John the Baptist Church in Haifa are getting into their seasonal musical finery with a wide-ranging program of works by Handel and Bach, as well as English folk songs and numbers from musicals.
The entire repertoire will be performed by the 12 members of the Inbal Ensemble hand bell ringers. The ensemble will be presided over by conductor Idit Schechtman, who also arranged some of the works in the Latrun and Haifa concert lineups.
For tickets and more information: (02) 535-6954 Moving science The Madanoa, the mobile science unit of the Davidson Institute of Science Education, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, will travel northward every Shabbat this month and take up temporary residence at the Hachava site at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. Each Shabbat, two workshops for children will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on a range of topics.
The activities are designed for different age groups, from two- to five year olds, and five- to eight-year-olds. The younger group’s activities will include preparing candles and learning about energy accumulation and how to make paraffin. The children will also paint the candles they make and prepare candle holders using items from nature.
The older group’s activities will include a session called The Science behind the Fire, where the youngsters will learn about the physical and chemical elements involved in combustion, as well as how to build a home fire extinguisher, with a small fireworks display to finish off with. The older group will also learn about the properties of light and how our eyes work, and get an idea of how lasers work.
For more information: (03) 613-8286 and www.hachava.org.il, and (08) 937-8300 and www.davidson-weizmann.ac.il.
Dimona comes to Tel Aviv
Residents of the center of the country will get a taste of what our southern ambassadors of culture have to offer when Director’s Cut by the Dimona Theater’s Culturalab Ensemble plays at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv Monday through Thursday (8:30 p.m.). The play is based on the sixth installment of Thirteen Pipes by Soviet writer and journalist Ilya Ehrenburg, which has been freely adapted by Noa Raban Knoller.
The story is set in the 1920s, the golden era of Hollywood silent movies. The protagonists are a hapless actor couple who get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fame and fortune when they are mistakenly cast in a Hollywood production. The husband is determined to make the most of their good fortune but finds himself getting deeper and deeper into his celluloid persona and losing his grip on reality.
The cast of Director’s Cut includes Zohar Goren, Yaakov Zada Daniel, Hagit Cohen, Mor Yossef, Yoav Koresh and Ofir Nahari, with music by Nahari.
For tickets and more information: www.dimonalabtheater.co, (03) 606-0960 and www.cameri.co.il.