Werk der Woche - Chaya Czernowin: Zaide / Adama

As state of Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary of independence, the long standing conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians remains unresolved.  This difficult topic is the at the heart of Chaya Czernowin’s opera Zaide / Adama and on 25th May it will receive its German premiere.  Using Mozart’s Zaide from 1779 as a historical parallel, Israel-born Czernowin takes themes of clashing cultures into the modern era.

Zaide’s story of the bleak outlook of love between a Muslim slave and a Christian is beautifully interlocked with a passionate story of an Israeli woman and a Palestinian in Adama with Czernowin's music interacting between Mozart's like in a dialogue.  Adama is not in any way a completion of the unfinished opera by Mozart but instead forms dialogue of correspondent and confliction. In Andrea Moses' production at the Theater Bremen, Daniel Montané has the musical direction of Zaide whilst Florian Pestell conducts the Adama parts by Chaya Czernowin. The leading characters of Adama are sung by the same cast as at the Salzburg Festvial 2006 when the world premiere took place, Noa Frenkel as the woman, Yaron Windmüller as the man and Andres Fischer as the father.