Jewish nationalism in opera

Abstract

From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe supported the development of musical theater in Yiddish. Given the difficulties of life in the shtetl, comprising isolation from non-Jewish neighbors, limited educational opportunities, poverty and political oppression, Yiddish opera functioned as a statement of Jewish nationalism. In this paper, I will discuss the historical conditions under which it was presented, including the following factors: effect of folk music styles documented in the field research of ethnomusicologists in Eastern Europe; topicality of subject matter in Yiddish opera as definition of the growing Jewish nationalist political movement; and identity and background of important composers and performers of the genre, and the effect of emigration to the United States on the style and content of their work.