La Roma EbraicaPresented by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, CentroPrimo Levi, and Divinamente NYC Festival in collabo-ration with the Consulate General of Italy, the ItalianCultural Institute and the Jewish Community of Rome.

Sunday, May 22, 2:30 pmEdmond J. Safra HallThis concert is dedicated to the memory of DanielaDi Castro z"l (1958-2010), late director of theJewish Museum of Rome, friend and eminent scholarwhose work, imagination, and ability to personify thethousand facets of Roman Jewry, will always stand asinspiration to those who will pursue her ideas and theprojects she initiated.

Playbill

CENTRO PRIMO LEVI

MUSEUM OF JEWISHHERITAGE

150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY

On March 17th, 1861 Vittorio Emanuele II was declared King of Italy, unit-ing seven states under the Savoy crown.

It was not until September 20th, 1870, when the Piemontese troops enteredRome marking the end of the temporal power of the Popes, that the Jews ofRome officially became free and equal citizens of Italy. This was the last dayof the ghetto of Rome, established in 1555 by Pope Paul IV in order to sepa-rate the Jews from the Christian society. Instead, culture flourished for threecenturies within the walls of the ghetto. Despite oppression and poverty,Roman Jews succeeded in adapting to their confinment and build a strongsense of identity.

The presence of the synagogue choir dates back to the Cinque Scole, thebuilding in which the synagogues of five different communities of the multi-ethnic ghetto were forced to cohabit. In the decades following the abolitionof the ghetto, the Cinque Scole were demolished and, in 1904, a monumen-tal synagogue -Tempio Maggiore - was erected to represent the newly eman-cipated Jewish community.

On their first visit to the US, the Choir of the TempioMaggiore conducted byrenowned tenor Claudio Di Segni and featuring Hazan Alberto Funaroand organist Federico del Sordo, will expose the New York public to theunique flavors and variations of the liturgical tradition of the Jews of Rome.

The concert will open with Giuseppe Verdi's Và Pensiero, the Hebrew chorusfrom Nabucco. This magnificent choral work, which has become a symbolof the unification of Italy, evokes the story of the Babylonian exile afterthe destruction of the First Temple. Unique examples of late 19thCentury compositions from the Jewish communities in Florence, Livorno,and Rome will follow along with a 1920 version of Hatikvà by Armando So-rani (based on the 17th Century ballade La Mantovana).

PROGRAM

Greetings: DavidMarwell, MJH, Natalia Indrimi, CPL

Welcome remarks: Consul General of Italy Francesco M. Talò andDr. GiacomoMoscati, International Relations, Jewish Community of Rome.

Introduction: Francesco Spagnolo, Ph.D. Curator of The Magnes Collectionof Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley

Concert: The Choir of Rome’s Tempio Maggiore

CONCERTDirector: M.o Claudio Di Segni, Hazan: Rav Alberto Funaro, Organ: M.oFederico Del Sordo. Cello: Hannah Sloane. Tenors: Alberto Di Capua,Marco Di Porto, Giuseppe Mallel, Ariodante Vitali. Bass: Massimo Gai,Enrico Orvieto, Emanuele Pace, Cesare Vitali

ExileVa pensiero (G. Verdi)‘Al naarôth bāvel (Salmo 137)

HomelandItalia e Vittorio Emanuele(A. Di Segni)Il canto della speranza (Hatiqwāh)

PesachBetze’th Yiṡrā’ēlHallēlLō’-āmûth (E. Ventura, Livorno)Betze’th Yiṡrā’ēl (Venezia)Jealeluha (adapted from the themeofMosé by G. Rossini)

ShabbathHashkîvēnû (E. Piattelli)WeShāmerû (S. Saya)Yôm hashishi (S. Saya)Osè shālôm

KippurKol nedārîmUnthanneh tôqef kedushathSēder ha-’avôdāhĒl nora alilaBirkath koanîm

Simchat TorahYāfûtzû ‘ôyevekāShaar asher nisgar (Venezia)Halelûyāh (Salmo 150)(D. Garzia, Firenze)

On the Music of the Jews in Rome

Francesco Spagnolo, University of California, Berkeley

The history of Jewishmusic in Italy is long, fascinating, and filled withcontradictions. Its length is due to the very history of Italian Jewry, whose ori-gins go back more that two thousand years. Fascination stems from the meet-ing of the music of the Jewish Diaspora, represented in Italy by anunprecedented interaction among distinct Italian, Ashkenazi and Sephardictraditions, with Italian musical culture and its innumerable cultural, regionaland linguistic differences. The contradictions concern the thousand identi-ties, visible and invisible, of the Jews of Italy: the secrecy of the ghettos, placesof exclusion and also of explosivemusical ferments emblematically representedin the works of Salamone Rossi (ca. 1570-1630); the conflicts and the hiddenconsonances between Judaism andChristianity, and the distance between theliturgy of the Church and that of the synagogue, at once brief and unattain-able; the integration, and the cultural symbiosis, of Jews and Italy, and theshared feeling so beautifully expressed by Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco (1842);the relentless liturgical modernization carried out during the Emancipation inthe 19th century, which forever changed the “soundscape” of the Italian syna-goguewith the addition of choral repertoires and instrumental accompanimentimitating the operatic styles of Gioachino Rossini and others; and the tragiccharacter of the Fascist parable, ended in theHolocaust and the destruction ofItalian synagogue life.

Following the Holocaust, Italian Jewish communities large and smallhave attempted to reconstruct their liturgical repertoires by constantly revis-iting the musical structure of synagogue services, by staging public perform-ances of cantors and small choirs, and by releasing commercial recordingsfeaturing historical choral repertoires no longer included in the liturgy. Thisreconstruction, based on both oral and written sources, highlights the com-plex dynamics that characterize Jewish musical memory, revealing some inti-

mate aspects of Jewish communal life. Oral sources come from the individualmemory of culture bearers, handed down by oral traditions, as well as from theimportant field recordingsmade by Italian-Israeli ethnomusicologist Leo Levi(1912-1982), which documented the local traditions of twenty different ItalianJewish communities. Written sources include the transcription of local oralrepertoires, most notably those published by Benedetto Marcello (of Venice,1724-27) Federico Consolo (of Livorno, 1892), AbrahamZvi Idelsohn (of Fer-rara, 1936) and Elio Piattelli (of Rome, Piedmont and Florence, 1967, 1986 and1992), as well as thousands ofmanuscript music scores.Musicmanuscripts in-clude 17th- and 18th-century compositions often connected with Kabbalisticrepresentations (inVenice, CasaleMonferrato, Pisa and Siena), and thousandsof settings of liturgical texts in Hebrew (and at times in Italian) by a host ofprofessional and amateur synagogue composers, Jews and non-Jews alike, keptin Jewish community archives throughout the Peninsula (including Turin,Venice, Padua, Mantua, and Rome), at the Bibliographic Center of UCEI (theUnion of Italian Jewish Communities) in Rome and in the Music Departmentof the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, and in the private homes of Ital-ian Jews in Italy and Israel. The comparison between oral and written sourcesshows their inter-relations.Whilemanywritten sources were created to recordan ever-changing (or vanishing) oral tradition, original musical compositionsoften ended up influencing oral repertoires. Oftentimes, the music sung bytoday’s synagogue cantors in a traditional solo-voice style and perceived bysynagogue-goers as “ancient” and “authentic,” is nothing by a “re-tradition-alized” memory of 19th-century choral pieces, of which only the main melody(and not the choral parts, at times sung by female or mixed choirs, or the orig-inal organ accompaniment) has been preserved in oral form.

The musical repertoires of the community of Rome represent an em-blematic case of interaction among the different layers of Italian Jewish musi-cal memory. The peculiar history of this community is indeed reflected in itsmusic. The traditional soundscape of Roman Jewry was forever changed in1904, when the inauguration of a new, monumental synagogue (the “Tempio

Maggiore”), de-facto erased the pre-existing oral traditions kept in the “CinqueScuole,” the synagogue of the ghetto that preserved the rituals of several con-gregations according to their geographic origins (including Italy, Sicily,Castile, and Catalunia), by merging them into a unified ritual. The notion ofunifying Italy’s diverse Jewish liturgical rituals, an idea that goes back to the ad-vent of Kaballah in 16th-century Venice, had been formulated in a Responsum(1841) by a leading 19th-century modernist Rabbi, Lelio Della Torre (1805-1871), a teacher at the Italian Rabbinical College in Padua. The process had al-ready been tested out in Florence with the inauguration of the monumentalsynagogue of that city (1882), the merger of local Italian and Sephardic tradi-tions, and the adoption of the Spanish-Portuguese liturgy of Livorno.

As it had already happened in Florence, the pre-existing oral tradi-tions of the Roman community never completely faded frommemory, and havesince been kept alive by individual cantors and families, and inserted in thenew ritual through the elaborate mixture of musical syncretism and culturalnegotiation that characterizes each and every Italian Jewish community. Thesetraditions, however, had not existed unchallenged before the opening of thenew Roman synagogue. On the contrary, they had already been sharing theliturgical stage with a newmusical repertoire, made of choral music, for at leasthalf a century. This newmusic was originally imported from other Italian com-munities, especially Livorno – a thriving center of Jewish cultural innovation,and the birthplace of many of Rome’s “Chief Rabbis” in the 20th century, in-cluding David Prato (1882-1951) and Elio Toaff (b. 1915) – from where com-posers likeMichele Bolaffi, DavidGarzia, andErnestoVentura began changingItaly’s Jewish sounds since the early 19th century. Beginning in 1845, musicalcomposition also became the domain of local composers and choir directors –including Settimio Scazzocchio, Saul Di Capua, and Amadio Disegni, amongothers – whose work was included in the liturgy. Their impact of synagoguemusic was tremendous, and their work began to be recorded in the Italian Jew-ish press. A report published in L’Educatore Israelita (a periodical issued inVercelli, Piedmont), dated 1856, offers a vivid description of how choral music

was influencing the culture of the Roman Jewish community, adopting anagenda inspired by modernization and interfaith dialogue (with the Catholicmajority), in line with the development of the Jewish Reform movement innorthern Italy and throughout Europe.

“In 1845, an association of youngmen, devoted to the uplifting of thedecorum of the liturgy at least on the Sabbath and the major holidays, beganstudying music so that they could sing as a choir during said holidays, per-forming the Psalms and other texts. […] Shortly thereafter, three of our syna-gogues had their choristers trained by distinguished Jewishmusic teachers. Itwas also decided to turn these teachers into composers, and they produced ex-cellent works, as heard from Capua, Di Veroli, Disegni, and Scazzocchio.”

Less than a decade later, the modernizing effect of this music had al-ready taken the lead, attracting not only Jews, but also Catholic synagogue-goers. The same periodical thus reported in 1862:

“During the nights of Passover […] our synagogues were full ofCatholics, who behaved with the utmost decorum. The synagogue most fre-quented by Catholics is the Scuola Catalana, since it is embellished by a choirof chosen youngmen, who truly honored the Festival with religiousmusic, andon the last night [of the Festival] entertained both religious Jews and Catholicvisitors with a newYigdal, set tomusic by Settimio Scazzocchio, the young di-rector of the choir.”

Maestro Claudio Di Segni studied music at the Rome Conservatory S. Cecilia where he cur-rently teaches. As tenor he trained with the legendary Franco Corelli, among others. He re-ceived important awards for his opera roles including Riccardo in Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera,Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto.

Rabbi Alberto Funaro is the hazan of the Tempio Maggiore and of the Tempio Spagnolo ofRome. He has recorded several CDs of Roman and Sephardic liturgical music.

Maestro Federico Del Sordo studied organ, piano, composition, and conducting at the Con-servatory of SantaCecilia in Rome, where he is currently a professor of organ and harpsichord.He also teaches at the Pontificio Istituto diMusica Sacra di Roma. A renowned organist, he reg-ularly appears in concert at major Italian and European venues.

Francesco Spagnolo, Ph.D., is the Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Lifeat the University of California, Berkeley. In 1997, he founded the Jewish music archives inMilan, and between 1998 and 2002 was responsible for the preservation and publication ofItalian Jewish sound recordings at the Ethnomusicology Archives of theNationalMusic Acad-emy in Rome and the National Sound Archives in Jerusalem.

Centro Primo Levi is the English Language portal for Italian Jewish studies and communitynews connecting the Italian Jewish worlds in Italy, Israel, and theU.S. Based at the Center forJewish History in New York, CPL serves the academic and the general public through re-sources, programs, networking, exchange opportunities, and educational initiatives.

TheMuseum’s three-floorCore Exhibition educates people of all ages and backgrounds aboutthe rich tapestry of Jewish life over the past century—before, during, and after the Holocaust.TheMuseum offers visitors a vibrant public program schedule in its Edmond J. Safra Hall andreceives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The third annual Divinamente NYC festival will take place fromMay 19th through 22nd 2011.Founded and led by renowned Italian actress Pamela Villoresi, the festival celebrates the spir-itual dimension of the arts and their ability to bridge across national boundaries. This programis presented in collaboration with the American Society of JewishMusic and is made possiblethrough the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

The programofCentro PrimoLevi ismade possible through the generous support of theCah-nmanFoundation, theViterbi Family Foundation, Peter S.Kalikow. For their contribution anddedication to Centro Primo Levi we are grateful to Rav Umberto Piperno, Rav Elie Abadie, theEdmond J. Safra Synagogue, and JonathanWajskol,Wajskol Design and Communications.

For additional information about Centro Primo Levi visit www.primolevicenter.org