S. An-sky’s play The Dybbuk, written in Russian between 1913 and 1916 and later translated into Yiddish by the author himself, was first performed by the Vilna Troupe in Warsaw in 1920. It has since become a canonical—indeed iconic—work of both Hebrew and Yiddish theatre.
Now, as it marks its 40th anniversary, the Israeli Opera presents a new Hebrew opera that offers a fresh reading of the old mystical tale of a young bride possessed by the malicious spirit of her dead beloved. On opening night, the audience responded enthusiastically to this dark, gripping, and multi-layered work.
Librettist and director Ido Ricklin takes considerable liberties with the original text, shifting the emphasis from the mystical to the psychological and casting a critical eye on traditional Jewish marriage customs and the ritualistic oppression of women. A beautiful yet horrifying lullaby about a young goat whose legs are broken in order to quiet him serves as a chilling metaphor.
Leah, who in the original play often remains enigmatic and distant, is here placed at the dramatic centre and given a rich inner voice. This is less a “story about a dybbuk” and more the story of a young woman suffocating within an authoritarian world—until she suddenly finds a way to speak.
She is portrayed as stubborn and rebellious, gradually becoming quiet and obedient under the shadow of her powerful father. Then comes Hanan: a poor, brilliant, and turbulent yeshiva student who disrupts the social and emotional order in which she lives and ignites a love that has no real space in which to be fulfilled.
The rift, then, is not only between life and death, but between two worlds: the world of establishment, law, and honour, and a world of passion, freedom, and danger. Hanan, willing to challenge even the divine order, dies while attempting to bend fate—and at that moment, the dybbuk is born. Here the opera proposes an almost psychological interpretation: the dybbuk may not come from the realm of the dead at all, but “from the depths of Leah’s tortured and silenced soul,” as Ricklin suggests. It may not be Hanan’s voice speaking from within her, but finally her own.
Josef Bardanashvili’s superb score likewise represents a meeting point of worlds: the result of decades-long exploration of Jewish musical traditions, theatre, and stage music. It weaves together Georgian and Ashkenazi prayer motifs, Yiddish inflections, echoes of the Soviet avant-garde, and even reflections of Gustav Mahler and Olivier Messiaen—all unified by a distinctive personal voice. Conductor Dan Ettinger describes two parallel musical planes: one grounded in the realistic world of the town and its characters, and the other an emotional-mystical “cosmos” that envelops the drama.
The opera opens with a striking image: the young Leah sits alone onstage while, behind her, three women in black ritually cleanse the naked body of her dead mother in preparation for burial. It is a stark and unsettling beginning, placing death at the very threshold of Leah’s life.
The older Leah—sung by the marvellous soprano Alla Vasilevitsky—descends slowly from above, from what appears to be a synagogue’s women’s gallery. The visual metaphor is clear and painful: the women floating above are confined to the margins, separated from the men, and cast into wedding nights with strangers. Later, Frida (contralto Rona Shrira) gives voice to this oppression in a chilling description of the terrors of the marriage bed.
The mother’s death continues to haunt Leah. In another powerful scene, she visits her mother’s grave just as Hanan (baritone Oded Reich), rebuked and humiliated by her wealthy father, comes to declare his love. As they meet, the stage begins to revolve, and the grave circles around them—an ominous, almost cinematic foreshadowing of their shared fate. Notably, Hanan’s melodic love aria is far from romantic; it is possessive, vowing that Leah will never be free of him.
After Hanan’s apparent suicide, the wedding scene—to the groom her father has chosen—forms another dramatic climax. Leah is encircled by beggars and drawn into a wild, almost satanic dance that drives her into a trance-like state. The choreography blurs the line between ecstasy and possession, between ritual and rebellion. When the groom finally arrives, she refuses him. The words may belong to the dybbuk, but the voice is unmistakably her own.
Later, when Leah emerges from her room—seemingly possessed and clad in a blood-stained wedding dress—the scene inevitably recalls the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, placing this work within a long operatic lineage of oppressed women driven to the edge.
Heike Scheele’s set design is both stark and spectacular, perfectly attuned to Josef Bardanashvili’s richly layered score. The visual austerity sharpens the emotional intensity rather than diminishing it.
The cast performed at the highest level throughout. Soprano Yael Levita was mesmerising as the aged beggar woman who urges Leah to summon Hanan’s spirit. Romanian baritone Ionuț Pascu—the only non-Israeli singer in the cast—was excellent as the loving yet socially ambitious father, blind to the possibility that his daughter’s desires might diverge from his own. Baritone Oded Reich made a compelling Hanan, at once attractive and unsettlingly possessive. Above all stood the magnificent Alla Vasilevitsky, moving with astonishing ease from a naïve young woman dreaming of love to a furious, fractured figure consumed by madness.
The chorus was in superb form, as was the orchestra under the baton of Dan Ettinger. The dazzling score sounded as though it had already been tested and refined over many performances. This was an exhilarating encounter with a major new work of art—one that deserves to secure a lasting place in the operatic canon.
The Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv-Yafo האופרה הישראלית תל-אביב-יפו
Opera
Music by Josef Bardanashvili
Director: Ido Ricklin
Set Designer: Heike Scheele
Costume Designer: Ored Dar
Conductor: dan Ettinger
Sung in Hebrew with Hebrew and English surtitles
Cast includes Alla Vasilevitsky, Oded Reich, Ionut Pascu, Yael Levita
Running time: 2 hour and 30 minutes
Photo credit: Y. Zwecker