You're shielded, glassy, unreadable, undetectable

[sovay]

I couldn't have gone to see it and there's no suggestion its premiere was available to watch streaming, but I can't believe I didn't hear until now about Evan Rapport and Daniel London's A Dying Person (A Goyses) (2023) because it is a chamber opera based on the Jewish Ethnographic Program conducted by An-sky in the Pale of Settlement between 1912–14. Thanks to the zeitgeist, I wondered what London had been doing with himself lately, because while I never watched Manhattan (2014–16), I did feel that as Oppenheimer he had a good face for it. Apparently the answer is writing a libretto for a language tsvishn tsvey veltn. It had better get a wider reception, or at least a recording. I keep wondering if An-sky who asked so many questions about Jewish magic knew when he was writing The Dybbuk that he was making a spell.

Comments

[sovay]

HOW DID WE MISS IT. WHY DID THE ETHER NOT TWANG.

IN OUR DEFENSE WE MIGHT JUST HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS ANOTHER PART OF OUR BODIES FALLING OFF.

(I am confident it must have been recorded because everything is nowadays, I just want to know how we persuade YIVO to give us access to it.)

Also, I feel a little badly for poor An-sky. I have this strange intuition he must not have slept very well.

I always remember he died before The Dybbuk was performed, but I never remember the Vilna Troupe staged the world premiere the day after shloshim ended. I'm pretty sure he's still in there. It's just weirdness all the way down.