me Israel Aestra JULU 3-QUGUSU 8 1979 me Israel Assam FOunoeD bu a.z. ppopes JULU 3-aUGUSB 8 1979 Member of the European Association of Music Festivals Executive Committee: Asher Ben-Natan, Chairman Honorary Presidium: ZEVULUN HAMMER - Minister of Education and Culture Menahem Avidom GIDEON PATT - Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Gary Bertini TEDDY KOLLEK - Mayor of Jerusalem Jacob Bistritzky Gideon Paz SHLOMO LAHAT - Mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo Leah Porath Ya'acov Mishori Jacob Steinberger J. Bistritzky Director, the Israel Festival. Director, The Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition. Thirty years of professional activity in Artistic Advisor — Prof. Gary Bertini the field of culture and arts, as Director of the Department of International The Public Committee and Council: Cultural Relations in the Ministry of Gershon Achituv Culture and Arts, Warsaw; Director of the Menahem Avidom Polish Cultural Institute, Budapest: Yitzhak Avni Director of the Frédéric Chopin Institute, Warsaw. Mr. Bistritzky's work has Mordechai Bar On encompassed all aspects of the Asher Ben-Natan Finance Committee: development of culture, the arts and mass Gary Bertini Menahem Avidom, Chairman media: promotion, organization and Jacob Bistritzky Yigal Shaham management of international festivals and Abe Cohen Micha Tal competitions. Organizer of Chopin Sacha Daphna competitions in Warsaw and International Meir de-Shalit Chopin year 1960 under auspices of Walter Eytan Festival Staff: U.N.E.S.C.O. Shmuel Federmann Assistant Director: Ilana Parnes Yehuda Fickler Director of Finance: Isaac Levinbuk Daniel Gelmond Secretariat: Rivka Bar-Nahor, Paula Gluck Dr. Reuven Hecht Public Relations: Irit Mitelpunkt Dr. Paul J. Jacobi Organization of Performances in Caesarea: Shmuel Zemach Moshe Koi Main Ticket Distribution: "Rokoko" ticket office Arye Lipshitz Dr. J. Melkman-Mechnian Feature articles and Editing: Michael Ohad Dr. Arye Muscat Translations: Amatzya Amon Uri Ofer Editorial Assistance: Ilana Parnes, Rivka Bar-Nahor Gideon Paz Design of Festival brochure, programmes, posters & leaflets: Raphie Etgar Eliezer Peri Printed in Hamakor Press Ltd, Jerusalem Gershon Plotkin Printing Coordinator: Ignac Stefanicki Orna Porat Publicity: Government Advertising Department Leah Porath Official Carrier: EI-AI Israel Airlines Daniel Recanati Official Travel Agency: Conventions (Kopel Tours) Ltd. Dr. Elimelech Rimalt Moshe Ron Acknowledgement Dr. Herzl Rosenblum The Israel Festival Association gratefully acknowledges the assistance Shalom Rosenfeld rendered in the preparation of the Festival by the: Moshe Sanbar Australian Embassy Prof. Michael Sela British Embassy Michal Smoira-Cohn Diplomatic Representation of Greece Jacob Steinberger Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Uri Toeplitz The British Council Jacob Tsur The Italian Cultural Institute Prof. Arieh Vardi Cultural and Scientific Relations Division - Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yaakov Yannai Dr. Yosef Yzraeli EI-AI Israel Airlines Gabriel Zifroni Israel Government Tourist Offices Israel Philharmonic Mehta/Pavarotti Cameran Singers/ltai 7 Sat. Nabucco/Verdi Israel Philharmonic Mehta/Pavarotti 8 Sun. Nabucco/Verdi Israel Baroque Players Israel Baroque Players 9 Mon. The Dybbuk/Anski Eric's Puppet Company 10 Tue. Cameran Singers/ltai 11 Wed. Cinderella/Prokofiev 12 Thu. Cinderella/ Prokofiev 14 Sat. Cinderella/Prokofiev Boris Berman Rinat Choir/Ericson Siegfried Palm 15 Sun. Siegfried Palm The Dybbuk/Anski Jerus. Symphony Boris Berman 16 Mon. Workshop (morning) Eric's Puppet Jerus. Symphony 17 Tue. Compagnia Ferruccio Company Workshop Soleri (2 performances) Christa Ludwig 18 Wed. Rinat Choir/ Ericson Compagnia Ferruccio 19 Thu. The Dybbuk/Anski Soleri (2 perfor.) Quartetto Italiano 21 Sat. Lysistrata/ Aristophanes Christa Ludwig 22 Sun. Lysistrata Quartetto Italiano 23 Mon. Lysistrata Fried - Vered 24 Tue. Quartetto Italiano Every Good Boy... 25 Wed. Brooks Kerr/ Jazz Every Good Boy.../ Marisa Robles/Harp 26 Thu. Pena - Bonell Guitar Recital Stoppard 28 Sat. Marisa Robles/Harp Pena - Bonel 29 Sun. 30 Mon. Paco Pena Flamenco Co. 31 Tue. London Dance 2 Thu. Paco Pena Flamenco Co. Nuova Compagnia 4 Sat. London Dance Inbal/Bible Seminar 5 Sun. Nuova Compagnia Bat-Dor/Bible Seminar 6 Mon. Nuova Compagnia London Dance/Seminar 7 Tue. Bathsheva/Seminar 8 Wed. Australian Ballet Australian Ballet 29 Sun. Marisa Robles/Harp London Dance Paco Pena Flamenco Co. Paco Pena Flamenco Nuova Compagnia Kibbutz Dance Co. Five thousand years of Mediterrgpgan civilization in a single festival of The influence of Ur, Babylon and Egypt on our early cultural music, dance and drama! Would it not have been simpler to write an development was considerable, less so that of Greece and its Olympian encyclopaedia, in twelve volumes? mythology, which our forebears resisted with vigour. Apollo the sun In the introduction toKldseph and His Brethren", Thomas Mann god, Dionysos the god of wine and the arena games were foreign considers several of the stories in Genesis — the expulsion from the to the Jewish spirit. When Antiochus of Syria attempted to Hellenize Garden of Eden, the Flood, the Tower of Babel - and suggests they Jerusalem by force, he provoked the Maccabean revolt. Having wiped were common to many peoples and cultures. His theory is supported out of the Maccabees, Herod did impose Hellenization, and we may by the archaeologists who have shown that biblical legends had their thus conjecture that a performance of "Lysistrata" in the Roman roots in the lore of neighbouring societies. Noah, for example, that amphitheatre at Caesarea in July 1979 is not necessarily the play's "just man and perfect in his generations", woiiljd appear to be none Caesarea premiere. It may well have been performed there long ago for other than Utnapishtim who figures in the ancient Mesopotamian Epic the entertainment of some Roman governor. Be that as it may, of Gilgameslji'-hi.s story has its origins in Urof the Chaldees, Abraham's Aristophanes' comedy, opening as it does with the Athenian women's birthplace. Moses listened to the One God addressing him "out of the decision to cut down on their wifely duties and closing with the peace midst of the ijysh" and Akhnaton, king of Egypt, who rejected the celebrations, is a timely salute to the peace signed by Israel and Egypt. gods of his fathers, also prayed to one god, and wrote hymns to the This most ancient example of pacifist theatre will not be presented in sun. It was not by chance that Thomas Mann identified as Akhnaton the style of 411 BCE (the year of its Athenian premiere); it has been the Pharaoh whose dreams were interpreted by Joseph. But if our transposed to the beginning of the twentieth century. In another respect, business is witfi the Israel Festival, let us also recall that the Roman however, director Evangelitos has remained true to the Aristophanic amphitheatre at Caesarea, where the Deutsche Oper Berlin will present tradition: all the female characters are portrayed, as in the original "Nabucco", an opera describing the destruction of the First Temple production, by male actors. by Nebuchadnezzar, was built by HerodHess than a hundred years The Romans used to refer to the Mediterranean as mare nostrum, "our before the destruction of the Second Temple. sea." That was during a rare period of history when one power, to the No nation creates a culture in vacuo, wholly detached from surrounding exclusion of all others, held sway from Gibraltar to Palestine. Nearly cultures and unaffected by them. The Land of Israel was, from the 2000 years later, Benjamin Disraeli strove to establish British hegemony dawn of time, a vast highway linking kingdoms, continents and over the Mediterranean - thdse were the days when "Brittania ruled civilizations. To the south lay Egypt. From the north came the Assyrians the waves" - and almost achieved his object, when he acquired for the and Babylonians, the Persians, Greeks and Romans. Abraham journeyed British government a controlling share in the Suez Canal and prevented to the Land of Canaan from Ur, where many of the laws written into the Czar from taking control of Turkey. the Torah were promulgated centuries before the birth of Moses. The No matter which nation formally controlled the Mediterranean, there Philistines arrived by sea, having abandoned the great cultural centre was always another power that threatened the fortu nes of seafarers and of Crete and, incidentally, giving the lands name, Palestine. They were shipping in the Sea: the pirates. When Goethe as a young man visited invading the coastal plain of Israel as Joshua crossed the Jordan and Italy he was warned not to sail from Naples to Sicily since those who captured Jericho; a reminder of some of the troubles they caused our did so were never sure of reaching their destination and frequently ¡¿forefathers is contained in ttle opera "Samson and Delilah," which we ended up in the slave markets of Tunis. Piracy enters into the story of were able to see not long ago in Caesarea under Zubin Mehta's direction. Rossini's "L'ltaliana in Algeri", to be performed in the Festival by The merchant cities of the Phoenicia® Tyre and Sidon, are of greater Eric’s Puppet Company. One doubts if the Algerians, across the sea from antiquity than the Philistine towns Gaza and Ashkelon. Phoenician Rossini's Italy, see in his operatic frolic a major contribution to their ships, moreover, ruled the Mediter^iean long before the Greeks' and cultural heritage. The Algiers of the opera is as absurd as Alice's it was from the Phoenicians that the Greeks learned the secrets of Wonderland, though the subject of the European maiden whisked off glass-making and received their alphabet. Cultural as well as to the harem of an oriental despot is ever-popular with writers and commercial relations between the Phoenician cities and the kingdom readers alike (and at least one other composer used it: Mozart in his of Israel were very close in the reign of King Solomon, who imported "Seraglio").