Holon’s Purim magnum opus

In a resplendent show of mutual admiration, Holon honors the silver anniversary of the Israeli Opera, while the IO pays tribute to Holon’s 70th year.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The largest Purim parade in Israel will take place on Sunday, February 28, at 12 p.m. This year’s carnival will be dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Israeli Opera, as well as to the 70th anniversary of the city of Holon.
In accordance with its unique cultural policy, Holon decided to celebrate the anniversary of the Israeli Opera by honoring its outstanding activity and showing its appreciation for the 400-year-old art form that is thriving to this day.
Some 4,000 participants, huge displays and mobile facilities, hundreds of performers, theater groups, wind instrument players, drummers, dancers, gymnasts, skaters and Itzik the Clown, the host of the event, will honor the opera heroes and heroines in festive Purim style, using large-scale displays and rhythmic versions of operatic pieces.
As in previous years, the event will be held in cooperation with Israel TV Children’s Channel. And the winners of the costume competition will be selected and named the Adloyada king and queen.
The huge Adloyada displays will consist of moving mobile installations on which structures will constantly change throughout the course of the parade: they will be moving upward and downward, opening up and splitting apart.
The audience will be able to enjoy an enormous spectacle, beginning with the opening display of Holon’s 70th anniversary, at the center of which will be a five-meter high puppet of Holon’s model child, surrounded by models representing Holon’s position as the City of Children and Culture: models of the Israeli Children’s Museum, Holon’s Mediatheque, the Holon Design Museum and many more.
Among the displays, the audience will be able to recognize Rossini’s Cinderella in a giant pumpkin carriage; Dvorák’s Mermaid with her fellow sirens; Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel surrounded by children helping them push the witch into the soup pot; Puccini’s Chinese princess Turandot; Bizet’s flamboyant gypsy Carmen; a four-meter high balloon sculpture of Verdi’s Ethiopian princess Aida with models of the Sphinx and the pyramids made of balloons as well. In addition, Mozart’s Magic Flute; Madame Butterfly, standing with her little son within a huge display of a Japanese garden made of 8,000 fresh flowers, followed by Leoncavallo’s clowns performing on a 10-meter long carriage drawn by a horse; a show of fire breathers, stilt walkers, 80 actors, and Max and Moritz, the two naughty boys of the Israeli opera composed by Gil Shohat.
The parade will end with Verdi’s Masquerade Ball, at which world leaders will invite opera heroines to dance. The ball will take place on a gigantic colorful carousel. Some of the masked couples will be (impersonators of) US President Barack Obama and Madame Butterfly; Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Carmen; Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Little Mermaid; French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy with Aida; and Holon’s Mayor Motti Sasson with Turandot.