TAPAC presents 2010/2011 program

Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle among offerings.

By HELEN KAYE
If we can’t go anywhere, why, the world will come to us via the 2010/11 season of opera, dance and music at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center (TAPAC) and at Masada.
“Culture is one of the things we do best,” TAPAC general director Hannah Munitz says enthusiastically, “and opera at Masada brings cultural tourism to Israel for the first time.”
Indeed, Munitz hopes to make the event into an international Mediterranean opera and music festival. There have indeed been nibbles from France, Italy and, ever so tentatively, Lebanon.
This year, in June, it’s Verdi’s Nabucco, to which some 4,000 tickets were sold to tourists, and for next year’s Aida there are already 6,000 orders.
Coming back to earth, the TAPAC season features debuts, the contemporary and crowd-pleasers in equal measure. And a word about the Israel Opera (IO), which Munitz has led since the 1990s: she promised then that Israelis would gradually replace imports in all aspects, and this is happening steadily. For instance, the Opera Studio provides the leads for the IO’s new family series, hour-long operas for the whole family on the main stage. In August there’ll be the world premiere of David Zebba’s Alice in Wonderland, preceded by The Magic Flute and Cinderella (July). The tickets, priced at NIS 140-180, are not cheap; a subscription to all three runs NIS 300-400.
For the rest, Verdi’s Ernani and Donizetti’s cheerful The Daughter of the Regiment make their local debut. Also in the lineup are favorites Norma, La Traviata (a Franco Zefirelli spectacular) and Porgy and Bess (from Capetown) together with lesser known 20th century pieces by Shostakovich (Lady Macbeth from Mtsensk) and Bartok (Bluebeard’s Castle) with sets by world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly.
The dance department offers return visits by such as Alvin Ailey, Nacho Duato’s National Dance Company of Spain and Pilobolus together with Miguel Angel Berna and his newest piece, Goya, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet with Mauricio Weinrot’s Carmina Burana, the Montreal Jazz Ballet, Dwight Rhoden’s remarkable Complexions company, and Sutra, a performance piece that combines contemporary dance with martial arts, performed by monks from China’s Shaolin Temple.
Two new series designed for the young join the ever popular jazz,symphonic, liturgical, and Saturday morning programs. They are WorldMusic and Classic Rock. Idan Raichel presides over the former, whichincludes the award-winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo among its fourconcerts. The Raanana Symphonette orchestral arrangements to the likesof Ninet Tayeb and Asaf Avidan in the rock series.
And all that works on a budget of NIS 140 million, 50 percent of whichcomes from earned income, another 12% from donations and 38% frompublic funding.