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Stage : Concerts |
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Thomashefsky’s Yiddish Theatre
Conductor : Michael Tilson Thomas A concert "devoted to the musical world and family lore of Tilson Thomas' forebears"
The event included readings from the autobiographies of the conductor's grandparents and visual projections of family documents and mementos. It also included music from various Thomashefsky stage productions which took place between 1892 and 1922. These were the first performances of this music since then.
Patricia Birch has staged the Thomas/Thomashefsky show with
welcome restraint, adroitly balancing slide-and-film projections
with jazzy-funky music and stylish song-dance-and-speak routines.
Tilson Thomas leads a nifty 17-piece band with Mozartean bravado.
The inspired cast is led by Judy Blazer, warm and wry as Bessie,
with Shuler Hensley big and bold as Boris in his prime and
Eugene Brancoveanu mellifluous as his youthful alter ego. Ronit
Widmann-Levy preens amusingly as an almost-operatic diva. Stellar
embellishment arrives in monologues by Judy Kaye and Debra Winger.
Fiddler-Shmiddler. This one really raises the roof.
Wednesday night at Davies Symphony Hall here, Yiddish was alive. The San Francisco Symphony was alive. And they came together for "The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater," which a spokesperson for the orchestra described as the hottest ticket of the season. "Nightline" recently devoted 20 minutes to the project. The concert was sold out a month ago..... The evening proved to be three hours of pure pleasure. The program, directed by Patricia Birch, was an ambitious and agreeable mishmash, which meant it suited its material. Tilson Thomas offered reminiscences and conducted a small orchestra. Lively music was dredged up, some of it unheard for a hundred years. Much of it was hysterically funny, including an antic Bar Mitzvah March from "Dos Pintele Yid" (A Little Spark of Jewishness) and "Biznes Befor Plezhur" from "Der Yidisher Yankee Doodle." Some things you just had to imagine, such as Boris' Yiddish Parsifal or his "Hasidic" Hamlet — Shakespeare, he advertised, "translated and improved."
Boris, who died at 73 in 1939 five years before his grandson was born, was a tumultuous, galvanic figure - actor, singer, writer, impresario and seemingly full-time ladies' man. From his boyhood as a star synagogue soloist in the Ukrainian city of Berditchev to his last years as an aging but still charismatic stage performer, Boris lived for the spotlight ..... Much of that theatrical zest and hunger for applause came through in Wednesday's performances .......... Boris was represented variously by Shuler Hensley, who projected the actor's restlessness and hunger, and by baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, whose suave, appealing vocalism captured what must have been Boris' easy onstage charm. Read the full review at SFGate.com
The Thomashefskys pioneered a theatrical movement that released a flood of music by the likes of George and Ira Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. The latter became a mentor to Tilson Thomas. And the Gershwins, growing up in the shadow of the Thomashefskys, referred to Boris in song. Even before that, in 1910, Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth wrote a tune that paid tribute to Boris' larger-than-life persona and womanizing reputation: "Who Do You Suppose Married My Sister? - Thomashefsky." Shuler Hensley - an exceptional baritone - was Boris, singing and boasting over his theatrical and sexual conquests. Read the full review at MercuryNews.com LINKS : NPR
Morning Edition
Project Recalls Yiddish Theater Legends : San Francisco Chronicle Michael Tilson Thomas invites you to meet his grandparents - the amazing Thomashefskys |
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Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York City,
16 - 17 April 2005
REVIEW : Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
