I finally began to feel that we may be winning the battle against the coronavirus when I read that the Israeli Opera had announced the opening of a summer season of live performances and I was at last able to book tickets for two whole operas. This was a happy day for all opera lovers and huge for the hundreds of people who work in opera and whose careers were brought to an abrupt halt at the beginning of 2020. This was not the first time that opera in Israel had suffered prolonged periods of silence, though it was certainly the first time a halt had been caused by a virus. Generally the problem was money, as it had been from the very early efforts to bring this divine art form to the country.
The first opera house of Israel, then still Mandatory Palestine, was meant to be in Jerusalem. The original founder of the Israel Opera was a Ukrainian Jewish conductor named Mordecai Golinkin who immigrated to Palestine in 1923, already determined to establish an opera company in the holy city.
Tel Aviv was finally chosen as a more viable venue because, it was said, it was the city most likely to attract artists. Many decades later, in the Teddy Kollek era, the idea of creating a second opera house, this time in Jerusalem, was seriously discussed. I have been passionate about opera since childhood, so I would readily have invested that passion in efforts to realize this dream. Sadly, a great deal more than passion would have been required.
So, Tel Aviv it had to be and year by year the Israel Opera has flourished, attracting a devoted coterie of regular subscribers, expanding its repertoire, its outreach, its remit and its reputation outside the country.
The company as we know it today was founded after a long history of stops and starts. Mordechai Golinkin’s dream was realized shortly after he arrived in the country, by the performance by his then Erez Israel Opera of Verdi’s La Traviata, in a cinema. In the ensuing years, he conducted a variety of operas in similar venues around the country, but by 1927 he could no longer afford to finance further performances. Historical events then intervened and there was no opera in Israel until the Palestine Folk Opera appeared on the scene in 1940, to be replaced by the Israel National Opera four years later. A further financial crisis brought yet another halt to opera when in 1982 the Ministry of Culture withdrew its grant. A sustained effort by local supporters resulted in the creation in 1985 of the New Israel Opera, a partnership with the Cameri Theater and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.
This company runs a regular program of major works including some premiers by Israeli composers, and also, since 2010, an outdoor season at Masada, a venue comparable with, perhaps even superior to the famous Italian festival in Verona. Today its regular home is in the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, together with the Cameri, and it is known simply as The Israel Opera, attracting companies and artists from around the world and always striving to keep its entrance fees at reasonable levels.
It costs millions of dollars a year to establish and run an opera house. There are many good reasons, to my mind, for continued financial support for the opera, though I admit that in commercial terms, it does not make much sense. The justifications are all aesthetic and cultural. Opera is a magical blend of acting and singing, a part of our musical heritage like no other. The combination of voice and a full orchestra to some of the most beautiful music ever written, can inhabit the soul, move you to tears, or please you with its invention, in a way not possible in any other medium. To lose this unique musical theater through lack of funds would, in my view, be a cultural tragedy.
The opera companies themselves are doing a good job in widening opera’s appeal through educational workshops, and particularly through live streaming into cinemas and then, during the coronavirus pandemic, into homes via the internet.
Jerusalem, with its unique blend of a population, would never have been able to sustain even a small second opera venue. To have any chance of success, even with generous local and government support and charitable donations, it would have to operate with a full house at every performance.
The population of Jerusalem is around 932,000, bigger than Tel Aviv. But 40% of that population is Palestinian, a population which has shown even less interest in opera than the general public. The same may be said of the ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem society. In other words, it would be totally dependent on patrons from around the country.
Jerusalemites therefore, are still waiting to hear the fat lady sing in their city, but for some decades now, her voice has been heard loud and clear in Tel Aviv, to the enjoyment of an ever growing band of home grown enthusiasts who cannot imagine an Israel with no opera.