Description
“Between Two Worlds: The Dybbuk” by Sëmen An-Ski is certainly one of the most important theatrical texts in the Yiddish language and became highly successful in the 1920s and 1930s, thanks to travelling theatre companies (Habimah, Vilner Troupe etc.) that brought it to the stage across Europe.
Numerous musicians were captivated by it, including the Turin composer Lodovico Rocca, who was the first to acquire its rights in 1929.
In 1934 the opera “Il Dibuk” composed by Rocca was performed for the first time at La Scala in Milan and became a huge success throughout the years leading up the Second World War and in the early post-war period, being performed in Italy and abroad to great acclaim.
An-Ski's drama, from which Renato Simoni adapted the libretto, symbolizes the connection between Judaism and Europe in the period between the 1920s and the 1930s. It expresses the uniqueness and pluralism of European Jewish cultures and reveals both the perspective of other Europeans towards Jews and the Jews' own view on cultural differences within their community.
“Il Dibuk” represents the perfect blend of the Italian musical and dramatic tradition and the Eastern European Jewish tradition (shtetl, Hasidism).
Although acknowledged as one of the most relevant and musically innovative operas of its time, the work has rarely been analyzed and hasn't been performed for almost fifty years. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to investigate how the librettist adapted aspects specifically related to Hasidism for an audience with little knowledge of the subject, and, in particular, how Eastern European Jewish culture musically influenced the composer. We have attempted to answer these questions through a careful study and analysis of the sources related to the genesis and creative process of this opera.
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