Dr. Michael Ochs and Dr. Mark Slobin, Center for Jewish History, NYC, 22 February 2013
Tailoring an Operetta to Its Audience: Rumshinsky's Di goldene kale (1923) at the Center for Jewish History, February 22nd at 10:30 A.M.
Joseph Rumshinsky's 1923 musical comedy, Di goldene kale (The Golden Bride) was a work carefully designed to both move and entertain its specialized American audience: Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe and their families. With pathos (the basic ingredient), love, "Jewish-style" music, a ritual kiddush, acts set in a shtetl and in America, a shadchen, a lullaby that slips into Russian, assimilated Jews speaking broken Yiddish, a paean to America, as well as other compelling features, it offered its attendees
a meaningful evening based on their past and present experiences.
Dr. Michael Ochs and noted scholar on Jewish music, Professor Mark Slobin, will present the talk, "Tailoring an Operetta to Its Audience: Rumshinsky's Di goldene kale (1923)" at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street) on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 10:30 A.M., in what promises to be an engaging
discussion of the issues surrounding the re-construction and arrangement of a Yiddish theater work. The Jewish Music Forum, a project of the American Society for Jewish Music, sponsors the talk.
Dr. Michael Ochs is retired Richard F. French Librarian and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard University, as well as the past music editor at W. W. Norton publishers. He is currently preparing a critical edition of the operetta's score based on manuscript material from the original production. Dr. Mark Slobin is Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music at Wesleyan University and author of Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World, Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate, and Tenement Songs: The Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants.
Admission is free.
For more information: www.jewishmusicforum.org