The Thomashefskys:

Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater

*J*

Tanglewood

Seiji Ozawa Hall, August 19-20, 2009

TanglewoodWednesday, August 19, 8pmThursday, August 20, 8pmFlorence Gould Auditorium, Seiji Ozawa Hall

The ThomashefskysMusic and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater

SEIJI OZAWA HALL

Hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas

With the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Directed by Patricia Birch

Starring Judy Blazer

Starring Neal Benari

And featuring

Ronit Widmann-Levy and Eugene Brancoveanu

Script by Michael Tilson Thomas

Produced in association with The Thomashefsky Project,

Linda Steinberg, Executive Director and Media Designer

Kirk Bookman, Production Supervisor and Lighting Designer

Naomi Zapata, Associate Production Manager

Peter Grunberg, Musical Assistant and Orchestral Pianist

Thomas Edler, Media Coordinator

Deanna Hull, Music Coordinator

Joshua Robison, Executive Producer

Bank of America is proud to sponsor the 2009 Tanglewood season.

Steinway and Sons Pianos, selected exclusively for Tanglewood.

Special thanks to Commonwealth Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation.

In consideration of the performers and those around you, please turn off all cellular phones, texting

devices, pagers, and watch alarms during the concert.

Please do not take pictures during the concert. Flashes, in particular, are distracting to the performers

and to other audience members.

Note that the use of audio or video recording during performances in the Koussevitzky Music Shedor Seiji Ozawa Hall is prohibited.

Act I

Joseph Rumshinsky Overture to Khantshe in amerike (1915)

Traditional Folk Song A mantl fun alt-tsaytikn shtof

[A coat from old-time stuff]

Judy Blazer

Percy Gaunt The Bowery (1892)

Abraham Goldfaden Mirele's Romance from Koldunye

[The Witch] (1879)

Ronit Widmann-Levy

Abraham Goldfaden Overture to Koldunye

Abraham Goldfaden Babkelekh from Koldunye

Eugene Brancoveanu

Giacomo Minkowsky Vi gefloygn kum ikh vider [As If OnWings I Come]

Lyricist unknown from Aleksander, der kroyn printsfun yerusholaim

[Alexander, Crown Price ofJerusalem] (1892)

Ronit Widmann-Levy

Eugene Brancoveanu

Louis Friedsell Kaddish from Der Yeshive bokher

[The Yeshiva Student] (1900)

Arnold Perlmutter

& Herman Wohl

Lyrics by Louis Gilrod

& Boris Thomashefsky

Medley from Dos pintele yid [A Little Spark of

Jewishness] (1909)

Pintele yid

Shtoyst zikh on [Give a Guess]

Bar Mitzvah March

Judy Blazer

Neal Benari

Ronit Widmann-Levy

Eugene Brancoveanu

Intermission

Act II

Arnold Perlmutter Reprise from Dos pintele yid

& Herman Wohl

Louis Friedsell Greenhorn Medley (1905-1908)

& Others Judy Blazer

Lyrics by Isidore Lillian

Nora Bayes Who Do You Suppose Married My Sister?

& Jack Norworth Thomashefsky (1910)

Michael Tilson Thomas

Abraham Goldfaden Title Song from Uptown, Downtown (1916)

Joseph Rumshinsky Khantshe from Khantshe in amerike (1912)

Lyrics by Isidore Lillian Judy Blazer

Arnold Perlmutter Lebn zol Columbus [Long Live Columbus]

.

& Herman Wohl from Der griner milyoner [ The Green

Millionaire] (1916)

Neal Benari

Eugene Brancoveanu

Lyrics by Boris Thomashefsky

Unknown Incidental Music from Minke di dinstmoyd

[Minke the Maid] (1917)

Joseph Rumshinsky Title Song from Vi mener libn

Lyricist unknown [The Way Men Love] (1919)

Eugene Brancoveanu

Musical numbers arranged after the originals by Michael Tilson Thomas with orchestra-

tions by Michael Tilson Thomas, Bruce Coughlin, and Peter Laurence Gordon.

English lyrics by Ted Thomas and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Video segments designed and produced by Dada. Media consultation by Concept

Organization, Inc. First production visuals byJeff Sugg.

Original sound design by Tom Clark. Additional sound design by Hal Nishon Soogian.

Readings excerpted from: Kaddishfor a Giant by Ted Thomas; Book ofMy Life by Boris

Thomashefsky; The Story ofMy Life: The Sorrow andJoys of a Yiddish Star Actress by Bessie

Thomashefsky; Bessie's Beauty Column in The Warheit newspaper; Di yidishe bine, the

Thomashefskys' magazine of TheJewish Stage; Thomashefskis Teater Shriftn, Boris Thoma-shefsky's Writings on Theatre.

Translations from the Yiddish by Chana Mlotek, Ronald Robboy, Kalman Weiser,

Marc Miller and Dr. Eli Katz.

The Thomashefsky Project acknowledges the significant contribution of the following

institutions whose archival materials were used in the research and production of The

Thomashefskys: New York Public Library, Dorot Jewish Division, New York City; New York

Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; New York Historical Society:

Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections, New York City;

Museum of the City of New York: Prints, Drawings and Photograph Collections; YTVOInstitute for Jewish Research, New York City; Library of Congress: Music and Film

Divisions, Washington, D.C.; Library of Congress: African and Middle Eastern Division;

Harvard College Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; American-

Jewish Historical Society, Yiddish Theater Poster Collection, New York City; BrownUniversity Library, Providence, Rhode Island; The Catskills Institute at Brown University;

National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, Massachusetts; Hebrew University, Israel GoorTheatre Archives, Jerusalem; Beth Hatfutsoth, Museum of the Diaspora, Tel Aviv;

Jabotinsky Institute Archives, Tel Aviv; Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore; Maryland

Historical Society, Baltimore; Chicago Historical Society, Chicago; the Pasadena Playhouse,

Pasadena, California; the Historic Mayfair Hotel Archives, Los Angeles and The B&ORailroad Museum, Baltimore.

Film segment courtesy of the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University,

Waltham, Massachusetts. Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director.

All images courtesy The Thomashefsky Project/Michael Tilson Thomas Collection of

Yiddish Theatre, unless otherwise noted.

Audio selections courtesy of the Sound Archives, YTVO Institute for Jewish Research,

New York, New York.

Cover photograph of Michael Tilson Thomas in "The Thomashefskys" by Stefan Cohen(Courtesy The Thomashefsky Project).

Mark Simon, Casting Consultant

Steve Colby, Audio Engineer

Joseph Spratt, Assistant Stage Manager

Cris Raymond, Wardrobe

Jamie Carson, Wigs and Makeup

Derek LeDoux, Productive Media, Inc.,

Teleprompter

Joe Miller, Video Projection

ECLPS, Lighting

AVFX, Projections

SAVI, Sound

Bessie Thomashefsky as Mamie in Der Yiddisher Yenki

Dudl/The Jewish Yankee Doodle, 1901-1902 People's

Theatre season

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

In his memoir, Soundsfrom My Life, composer Joseph Rumshinsky (1879-1956) wrote:

"The situation of the composer in the Yiddish theater in general is a sad one. Theworld can never get to know his better musical creations, because the whole score

—

in which the ensembles, serious duets, romances, andthe better songs are found—seldom, indeed hardly ever,

gets to print— And the saddest thing is, as soon as the

operetta closes and leaves the stage, the full score withers

and dies"

Unfortunately, Rumshinsky was right. Many of the scores

have vanished—but not all.

In The Thomashefskys, you will hear the music of shows

that played the theater houses of the Lower East Side in

New York and other American cities to which the

Thomashefsky troupe traveled in the late nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries. To say these are rescued lost

treasures is not an exaggeration. For ten years, TheThomashefsky Project has been searching out, recon-

structing, and preserving these disintegrating scores.

Extant fragments of musical manuscripts, discovered at

various archives, have been pieced together and tran-

scribed into a digitized music program on their way to

becoming as true a reflection of the original works as

possible. And as the manuscripts contained little or noannotation, it remained for Michael Tilson Thomas to

bring them to life—to edit and arrange the material,

according to his memory of how his grandmother Bessie

Thomashefsky, uncle Harry Thomashefsky, and father Ted Thomas performed the

numbers in the living room of his North Hollywood family home in the 1950s.

This quest for the exact flavor of the music as it reverberated through the theater

houses of the Lower East Side a century ago has remained a priority for Michael

Tilson Thomas. The first time I heard him speak about his grandparents, he pon-

dered on what it may have felt like to be alive at that time and in that place. Hequoted from Aaron Copland: "You compose because you want to somehow summa-rize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set

down. . . some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

So that when it's all gone, people will be able to go to the artwork of the time and

get some sense of what it felt like to be alive in this year." We hope that The Thoma-

shefskys will enable audience members to feel connected to the world of Boris and

Bessie Thomashefsky, the world of the fledgling American immigrant, where, as

MTT has expressed it, "new unimagined questions were waiting around every glitter-

ing corner."

When The Thomashefskys premiered at Carnegie Hall in April 2005, several membersof the audience commented that the music didn't "sound Jewish." This response

may be due, in part, to sensibilities nurtured by Fiddler on the Roof-—Broadway's pro-

jection of Sholom Aleichem's village of Anatevka—and to contemporary Klezmer

arrangements. It may also be due to unfamiliarity with the basic nature ofJewish

music, a secular and sacred heritage in development since early post-biblical times.

The Ashkenazic (East European) Jews, in particular, created a rich body of melody.

They developed liturgical music with Hebrew and Aramaic prayer texts, and, in all

areas where Jews settled, their minstrels mingled with other music-makers, borrow-

Joseph Rumshinsky pictured on the sheet music

cover of Bessie Thomashefsky's 1912 hit

Abraham Goldfaden, the "Father of Yiddish Theater"

(Collection of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,

New York)

ing and adapting elements from each other. These traveling minstrels, called bad-

khonim (literally, ones who concoct, create, make known), were folk educators as well

as entertainers and sang Yiddish songs imbued with meaning. As conditions grew

harsher in Tsarist Russia, their songs also took on quali-

ties of consolation and counsel.

European Yiddish theater was officially born only five

years before Boris Thomashefsky emigrated to America.

Abraham Goldfaden (1840-1908), generally regarded astthe "Father of Yiddish Theater," wrote and presented

y the first productions in Jassy, Romania, in 1876. Having

^^ himself been a badkhen for many years, he now set out

_ _ ^ ^^^^ to create a type ofJewish opera or operetta, for which

he interwove music from synagogue chants, religious

hymns, holiday songs, Hasidic tunes, Yiddish folk songs,

Slavic melodies, and European grand opera arias. That

such an eclectic recipe would almost immediately be

labeled as 'Jewish music" is not unusual. The history

ofJewish music, as the history ofJewish culture itself,

embodies the intermingling of traditional elements

with new stylistic influences culled from the worlds in

which Jews found themselves. We are talking about a

nomadic people, after all.

Boris Thomashefsky writes in his Autobiography that, as a boy of five in Kaminska,

while learning liturgical numbers from his grandfather, the Talner Khasn, he was

also singing Goldfaden songs. In America, a number of Goldfaden's operettas

became mainstays of Boris Thomashefsky's early repertory, including Koldunye (often

referred to as a Yiddish Cinderella story) , the musical drama chosen by the enter-

prising fifteen-year-old for the first presentation of Yiddish theater in America (New

York City, 1881). It also includes Shulamis, produced in Boston's Music Hall in 1888

and featuring fifteen-year-old Bessie Kaufman, who had just run away from home to

join Boris Thomashefsky and become a starke. Both Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky

had great affection for Goldfaden and helped him in his waning years in New York.

In 1907, to support the ailing Goldfaden, Boris Thomashefsky agreed to present his

last play, Ben Ami, at People's Theater. Rehearsals were still in progress when the

Father of Yiddish Theater died. Bessie was at his bedside.

While Goldfaden's operettas dominated the Thomashefskys' early repertory, the

composer Joseph Rumshinsky wrote the scores for the majority of Boris and Bessie's

later hits. Rumshinsky was forty years younger than Goldfaden, born in Vilna the

same year that Boris Thomashefsky premiered Koldunye in New York City. He thus

came of age in the 1890s, when there was an already established Yiddish theater and

Jewish popular music style. As Mark Slobin, author of Tenement Songs, explains: "It

was also the heyday of pre-Revolutionary salon and cabaret music in Russia, and all

these streams flowed through his musical life. Coming to America in 1906, Rumshin-

sky became the most prolific and influential of the operetta composers. He lived

through the transition from the older European-based plots and musical styles to

the advent of the lighter Americanized shows that set popular taste in the 1920s."

The program assembled by Michael Tilson Thomas for The Thomashefskys enables

us to travel the distance from Goldfaden to Rumshinsky, to stand on the threshold

where sounds ofJewish music entered mainstream American life and gradually

evolved into something new.

The themes of the Thomashefskys' productions evolved accordingly over the years

—

from Biblical tales and nostalgic stories of the old country to the personal and social

conflicts of acculturation in America. However, no one season can be called typical,

and attempts by historians to label their repertory as "shund" (a somewhat derogato-

ry Yiddish term denoting "popular" as opposed to "serious" work) are easily refuted.

Bessie and Boris Thomashefsky are no easier to label than their grandson, Michael

Tilson Thomas; eclecticism and the quest for new challenges are ever present.

Consider the offerings of the their first season at The People's Theater, 1902-1903:

in addition to two original dramas by Yiddish playwright Leon Kobrin dealing with

religious subject matter, old world myths, and the immigrant experience, Yiddish

versions of the following were presented: Goethe's Faust, Hugo's Hunchback ofNotre

Dame, and Shakespeare's Romeo andJuliet (with Boris Thomashefsky playing Mephi-

stopheles, the hunchback, and Romeo, respectively).

Hundreds of manuscripts of dramas and comedies belonging in the Thomashefskyrepertory have been found by The Thomashefsky Project, and a number have beentranslated. In comparing these productions and Boris and Bessie's accomplishments

in the context of the broader Yiddish theater scene, some conclusions about their

unique contributions can be made.

The first is their dedication to socio-political causes. For them, the theater was a

vehicle for social transformation. Between 1912, when Bessie Thomashefsky first

appeared in Khantshe in America, to 1922, the end of her stint as owner of Bessie

Thomashefsky's People's Theater, she produced and starred in more than a dozen

plays dealing with women's rights and struggles, such as suffragette causes andunwed motherhood. As the first Yiddish actress to publish her memoirs and own

and operate her own theater, she taught by example.

Boris Thomashefsky also never shied away from contro-

versial issues and kept a close eye on current events in

Europe. As evidenced by his chronicles of a 1913 trip

back to Eastern Europe, his childhood memories of the

pogroms were always with him. Until his death, he con-

tinued to write plays about victims of anti-Semitism,

such as Alfred Dreyfus and Mendel Baylis. A manuscript

in the Michael Tilson Thomas Collection, written in

Boris's hand, records his eyewitness account of the

1925 trial of Stanislaw Steiger, a Jew falsely accused of

attempting to murder the Polish president. In 1933,

while most Americans were oblivious to the impending

danger of the Third Reich, Boris wrote two plays about

Hitler.

Second, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky's comic plays

never lapsed into slapstick or buffoonery. They were

quick to expose the foibles of their people, but they

did so with affection, wit, and dignity.

Third, their daring programming helped to shape the

course of American drama. By importing the works of

Ibsen, Hauptmann, Ansky, Chekhov, Wilde, and other

avant-garde playwrights, a bridge between the newEuropean theater art forms and the American theater

was built for a brief but momentous period.

And finally, whether due to personal magnetism,

insight, ability to inspire, or entrepreneurial acumen,

they attracted countless authors, composers, actors,

musicians, producers, and designers. Together, this cre-

ative circle of talent produced plays and operettas that

Poster featuring "The Eminent Jewish Artist Bessie

Thomashefsky" with four of her most famous roles

illustrated below her portrait: (left to right) Minke di

dinstmoyd/Minke the Maid, Der griner bokher/The

Greenhorn Boy, Der Yisheve bokher/The Yeshivah

Boy (aka Hamlet), and Suzi Bren/Susie the Firebrand,

0.1917 (Courtesy The Thomashefsky Project, Michael

Tilson Thomas Collection of Yiddish Theatre)

THQINSHEFSKY

«

NOW PLAYING

N? BorisTHOWSHEFSWf

SOLOMON PUTTEWIOPF

"THE GREEN „MILLIONAIRErrtttmi* SHOHER-umiw DfTWAY"

were pioneering products in every sense, reflecting new approaches

to scriptwriting, musical composition, choreography, acting, directing,

and scenic design. And although this phase of Yiddish theater was

shortlived, its influence continued as its participants went on to Broad-

way, Hollywood, and elsewhere, helping to shape the development of

American popular culture.

The story of Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, Yiddish theater, and the

immigrant experience is vast and complicated. No doubt hundreds of

tales and melodies still lie dormant among the materials accumulated

by The Thomashefsky Project, waiting to be brought to life in the years

ahead. Meanwhile, The Thomashefskys is, in the words of its host, offered

to you as "an affectionate introduction."

LINDA STEINBERG

Linda Steinberg is Executive Director of The Thomashefsky Project.

Copyright ©2005 The Thomashefsky Project.

Images courtesy of The Thomashefsky Project/Michael Tilson ThomasCollection, YTVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, and the

Zylbercweig Collection, Israel Goor Theatre Archives, Hebrew University,

Jerusalem.

Poster for Boris Thomashefsky in

one of his most famous roles:

Solomon Putterknopf, "The Green

Millionaire, " 7976. (Collection

of the American-Jewish Historical

Society, New York)

Yiddish playwright Leon Kobrin,

flanked by Boris and Bessie

Thomashefsky, reading a newplay to the Thomashefsky Com-pany, 1910 (Collection of the

Israel Goor Archives, HebrewUniversity, Jerusalem, Israel)

Artists

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor and narrator), the grandson of Boris and Bessie

Thomashefsky, is music director of the San Francisco Symphony, artistic director of

the New World Symphony, and principal guest conductor of the London Sym-

phony Orchestra. A Los Angeles native, Mr. Tilson Thomas began his formal

music studies at the University of Southern California, where he studied piano

with John Crown and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age

nineteen he was named music director of the Young Musicians Foundation

Debut Orchestra. He worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Coplandon premieres of their works at Los Angeles's famed Monday Evening Concerts.

During this same period he was pianist and conductor for Gregor Piatigorsky

and Jascha Heifetz. In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood,

Mr. Tilson Thomas was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston SymphonyOrchestra. That year he also made his New York debut with the BSO, gaining interna-

tional recognition when he replaced music director William Steinberg in mid-concert

at Lincoln Center. Subsequently named associate conductor and then principal guest

conductor of the orchestra, he remained with the BSO until 1974. Mr. Tilson Thomaswas music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979, principal guest

conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985, and principal conduc-

tor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 1995. Music director of the San

Francisco Symphony since 1995, he has toured extensively with that orchestra in the

United States, Europe, and Asia. His guest conducting engagements include frequent

appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States. In 1987 Mr.

Tilson Thomas created the New World Symphony, a post-graduate orchestral academy

based in Miami Beach. Over 700 graduates of the academy are now in musical leader-

ship positions internationally. In 1991 he and the New World Symphony were present-

ed in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator

of Mr. Tilson Thomas's composition From the Diary ofAnne Frank; the work has since

been translated and performed in many languages worldwide. In August 1995 Mr.

Tilson Thomas led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the world premiere of his

Showa/Shoah, written in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of

Hiroshima. He has also written song cycles for Thomas Hampson and Renee Fleming.

His extensive television work includes a series with the London Symphony Orchestra

for BBC Television and the telecasts of the New York Philharmonic Young People's

Concerts from 1971 to 1977. Starting in 2004, Mr. Tilson Thomas and the San Fran-

cisco Symphony embarked on a multi-tiered media project, "Keeping Score," which

includes television, web sites, radio programs, and programs in the schools. In April

2009 he conducted the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; the orchestra

was the first ever assembled by worldwide on-line auditions. Viva Voce, his volume of

conversations with British critic Edward Seckerson, is published by Faber & Faber.

A Chevalier des Arts et Lettres and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and

Sciences, Mr. Tilson Thomas has been named Gramophone's Artist of the Year and

Musical America's Musician of the Year. He has won seven Grammys for his recordings

and in 2008 received a Peabody Award for his radio series "The MTT Files." Michael

Tilson Thomas's Tanglewood appearances this summer are his first since 1988, when

he led music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius, and Stravinsky in a concert of his ownwith the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and then led music of Bernstein, Mahler, and

Copland as part of the gala BSO concert celebrating Leonard Bernstein's seventieth

birthday. This coming Sunday afternoon, having led the BSO in a program of Rach-

maninoff and Shostakovich with pianist Yefim Bronfman last Saturday night, he

returns to the BSO podium for the orchestra's final concert of the summer, leading

Charles Ives's Decoration Day and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Patricia Birch

Patricia Birch (director) has earned two Emmy Awards and five Tony nominations in a

career that crosses all media. Other honors include Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle,

Barrymore, Billboard, and MTV awards, as well as a Directors Guild nomination

and the prestigious Fred Astaire Award for her choreography and direction of

music-driven projects ranging from Sondheim to the Rolling Stones. Ms. Birch

has created the musical staging for original Broadway and off-Broadway shows

including Grease; You 're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; The Me Nobody Knows; A Little

Night Music; Candide; Over Here; Diamond Studs; The Happy End; Pacific Overtures;

They're Playing Our Song; Gilda Radner, Livefrom New York; Zoot Suit; Rosa; Parade;

LikeJazz; and LoveMusik, with Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris, directed by

Harold Prince. Direction as well as choreography credits include Celebrating

Gershwin at BAM and the televised concert production of On the Town with the

London Symphony Orchestra, both with Michael Tilson Thomas; the Melissa Man-chester musical / Sent a Letter to My Love; the original production of Maurice Sendak

and Carole King's Really Rosie; Joe Raposo's Raggedy; The Snow Queen, a multi-media

docu-musical about the Comedian Harmonists; the Cy Coleman musical Exactly Like

You, and Portraits inJazz (music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman)at the Kennedy Center in 2002. She worked with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San

Francisco Symphony on Le Rossignol, the double bill Of Thee I Sing/Let Em Eat Cake, and,

this past June, Iolanthe. In development are Orphan Train, a dramatic musical, and WoDzai, a multi-media martial arts adventure. Opera and music projects include Salome,

The Mikado, Candide, and Street Scene for New York City Opera; The Mass and The Balcony

for the Opera Company of Boston, also presented at the Bolshoi Theatre; and AWeddingby William Bolcom, Arnold Weinstein, and Robert Altman at Chicago Lyric

Opera. Ms. Birch's film credits include choreography for all musical sequences for

Grease and direction as well on Grease 2. She also staged musical sequences for Big,

Working Girl, Sleeping with the Enemy, Stella, Awakenings, Billy Bathgate, Roseland, The Wild

Party, First Wives Club, The Human Stain, and The Stepford Wives. For television, Ms. Birch

has directed Natalie Cole: Unforgettable with Love and Celebrating Gershwin, both of which

earned her Emmy Awards in direction; Dance in America for the 20th anniversary of

PBS's "Great Performances"; and Natalie Cole's Untraditional Traditional Christmas fea-

turing Elmo. She was a choreographer for The Electric Company and spent six years stag-

ing numbers for Gilda Radner, Steve Martin, Bill Murray. John Belushi, Jim Belushi,

Dan Ackroyd, and many guest stars on Saturday Night Live. She also directed music

videos for Cyndi Lauper, the Rolling Stones, the Oak Ridge Boys, Carly Simon, andNBC's Olympics telecast.

Judy Blazer

Judy Blazer (Bessie Thomashefsky) began her career as a young singer in opera, orato-

rio, and recital in New York City and throughout Italy. She moved into Broadway the-

ater with leading roles in Me and My Girl (Sally), A Change in the Heir (Prince

Conrad), Titanic (Lady Caroline), and Neil Simon's 45 Seconds from Broadway

(Cindy). Most recently on Broadway she was seen in LoveMusik, directed by

Harold Prince. Off-Broadway, she was featured in Candide (the Old Lady) with

New York City Opera, The House ofBernalda Alba (LTC), Sweeney Todd (the Beggar

Woman) with New York City Opera, The Torch Bearers (Florence) with TheDrama Dept., Lincoln Center's Hello Again by Michael John LaChiusa (DramaDesk nomination), The Roundabout's Hurrah at Last by Richard Greenberg,

and the New York City Center Encores production of Connecticut Yankee (Alice/

Sandy) . Ms. Blazer has sung at the Metropolitan Opera as a soloist in Twyla

Tharp's Everlast v/ith American Ballet Theatre, and has performed in concert at Lin-

coln Center singing music of Ricky Ian Gordon and at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater

singing songs of Michael John LaChiusa. She has recorded music of both these artists

and has been a guest on the recordings of vocalist Mandy Patinkin and violinist Nadja

Salerno-Sonnenberg, as well as a featured artist on over twenty other recordings.

Ms. Blazer has been seen on television in two episodes of Law and Order (as Defense

Attorney Simon and as Clara Porazzi, convicted murderer) , As the World Turns (Ariel)

,

Guiding Light (Marissa), and as a featured artist on two PBS specials, Bernstein's NewYork and In Performance at the White House. Regionally, she has just completed a run as

Luz in Giant at the Signature Theatre. She has played the title roles in Funny Girl at

Sundance Theater, The Miracle Worker at George Street Playhouse, My Fair Lady at the

Paper Mill Playhouse and the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Peter Pan at Artpark,

and The Night Governess at McCarter Theatre. She has also been seen as Maria in

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Long Wharf Theatre and as Lily Garland in Onthe 20th Century with the American Musical Theatre of San Jose. A graduate of the

Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Blazer has been on the voice faculty of New York

University and a guest teacher in colleges throughout the United States and Russia.

She is also artistic director of the Artist's Crossing Theatre Company and School.

Neal Benari

Neal Benari (Boris Thomashefsky) has been a professional actor and singer for over

thirty years and has numerous stage, film, and television credits. He has appeared onBroadway eight times, most recently in David Leveaux's revival of Fiddler on the

Roof. Other Broadway appearances include Disney's Aida, Blake Edwards's

Victor/Victoria starring Julie Andrews, Sir Peter Hall's The Merchant of Venice,

Chess, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Roza, and The First. He can

also be heard on the Broadway cast recordings ofJoseph and the Amazing

Technicolor Dreamcoat and Chess. Mr. Benari has worked extensively in regional

theaters and on national tours. He recently played the title character in KenLudwig's farce Lend Me A Tenor, Zuniga in Franco Dragone's "pop" adaptation

of Carmen at the La Jolla Playhouse, and Don Quixote/Cervantes in the Maltz

Jupiter Theater production of Man ofLa Mancha (nominated for a Carbonell

award) . Other major roles have included Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Tateh in Ragtime,

Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady (Carbonell and CEA nominations), Sweeney in

Sweeney Todd, Voltaire/Pangloss in Candide, Macheath in The Threepenny Opera, and,

under the auspices ofJoe Papp and the NY Public Theater, Schaunard in La boheme.

On tour he has played the villainous Zoser in Disney's Aida, Captain Von Trapp oppo-

site Marie Osmond in The Sound ofMusic, Thenardier in Les Miserables, and the piano-

playing Sidney Cohn in On Your Toes, directed by the legendary George Abbott. His

film and television credits include appearances on The Sopranos, And the Band Played

On, Sea ofLove with Al Pacino, various episodes of Law and Order, The Trials ofRosie

O'Neill, Mathnet, The Equalizer, and Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street. Neal Benari is very

pleased to reprise the role of Boris Thomashefsky in Michael Tilson Thomas's The

Thomashefskys. For more information visit www.nealbenari.com.

Ronit Widmann-Levy

Ronit Widmann-Levy (various roles, including Mme. Krantzfeld and Sophie Karp,

co-star of Alexander, Crown Prince ofJerusalem) has received accolades for her operatic

and concert performances throughout the world. A versatile artist equally at homeon both concert and opera stages, she has sung in opera houses and festivals in San

Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Berlin, Munich, London,

Bangkok, and Jerusalem. She has also sung at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the

Bath and Dartington festivals in England, the Jiidische Kulturtage in Berlin, and the

America Haus Concert Series in Munich. Ms. Widmann-Levy made her debut with the

San Francisco Symphony in February 2005 in Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri,

conducted by Ingo Metzmacher. She has regularly performed with Michael Tilson

Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in Carnegie Hall, with the Chicago

Symphony Orchestra, and with the New World Symphony Orchestra. Her inter-

pretation of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire has won praise and she has

been invited to perform the work in Europe and the United States. Ronit

Widmann-Levy's repertory includes the operatic roles of Violetta in La traviata,

Konstanze in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Madama Butterfly, Micaela in

Carmen, Mimi in La boheme, Liu in Turandot, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Freia in Das

Rheingold, and, on the concert stage, Carmina burana, Beethoven's Ninth Sym-

phony, and Mahler's Second and Fourth symphonies. She is renowned for her

interpretation of Ladino (aJudeo-Spanish language) Romansa and in fall 2005

embarked on a world concert tour of music from her CD Como la Rosa. Future engage-

ments include further performances of "Como la Rosa" (a concert of Ladino Romansafor voice and guitar) and "Mozart's Life Through his Letters and Music" with the

Broderick Ensemble.

Eugene Brancoveanu

Eugene Brancoveanu (various roles including Young Boris Thomashefsky and LeonBlank, co-star of The Green Millionaire) recently gave acclaimed performances as the

Pilot in Rachel Portman's The Little Prince with San Francisco Opera. In 2008-09

he returned to that company as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, sang Karnak in Lalo's

Le Roi d'ys with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Count in Le nozze

di Figaro with the Livermore Valley Opera; performed as soloist in Elijah at the

University of California, Davis, and in Carmina burana with the Peninsula Sym-

phony Orchestra; and, with Los Angeles Philharmonic, continued in Michael

Tilson Thomas's The Thomashefskys, which he premiered at Carnegie Hall

and reprised with the New World Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.

In 2007-08 Mr. Brancoveanu made his New York City Opera debut as Pandolfe

in Cendrillon, sang the Pilot in The Little Prince, appeared as soloist in Brahms's

German Requiem with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and performed with the

Pacific Symphony Orchestra in a Bernstein concert. Since his San Francisco Opera

debut in 2005-06 as the Second Prisoner in Fidelio, he has returned there as Christian

in Un ballo in maschera, Marullo in Rigoletto, Morales in Carmen, Frank in Die Fledermaus,

Fiorello in II barbiere di Siviglia, and the Innkeeper and Captain in Manon Lescaut. Hewas appointed an Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera for two seasons, directly fol-

lowing his critically acclaimed summer 2004 performances as Tarquinius in Britten's

The Rape ofLucretia with the Merola Opera Program. Having originated the role of

Marcello in Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of La boheme, the honorary TonyAward-winner also received a 2004 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for his perform-

ances in the Los Angeles production. Other career highlights include Boris in Shosta-

kovich's Moskau, Tscherkomuschki at Staatstheater Stuttgart, Nicomedes in Lou Harrison's

Young Caesar for Ensemble Paralelle, a recital as part of the Schwabacher Debut Recital

Series, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro with the International Music Festival in Gut-Immlings,

Germany, and the title role in Philip Glass's Orphee with Universitat Mozarteum Salz-

burg. His numerous roles with Romanian State Opera include the Count in Le nozze di

Figaro, the title role in Don Giovanni, Silvio in I pagliacci, Figaro in II barbiere di Siviglia,

Escamillo in Carmen, and Uberto in La serva padrona. A graduate of the AmericanInstitute of Musical Studies in Graz and the Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg, Mr.

Brancoveanu is also a winner of the National Young Opera Singer Competition in Leip-

zig, the International Music Award in Loenberg, and the International Opera contest

"Ferruccio Tagliavini" Deutschlandsberg with Dame Joan Sutherland as Head ofJury.

Peter Grunberg

Australian-born Peter Grunberg studied in England and Switzerland, where in his early

twenties he played keyboard concertos by Bach, Mozart, Poulenc, and Gershwin with

the Orchestre de la Suisse Romade. He has been head of the music staff at

Geneva's Grand Theatre (1981-88) and at San Francisco Opera (1992-99); his

conducting debut at the Grand Theatre in 1988 with Mozart's The Magic Flute

was followed by an appointment as conductor-in-residence with the Sydney

Symphony Orchestra. Conducting engagements in the United States have

included San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Symphony, where heholds the position of special musical assistant to Michael Tilson Thomas. Hehas directed programs of music by Bach and Handel at the Pacific Music Festival

in Sapporo, Japan, performed chamber music with members of the Vienna

Philharmonic, and given orchestral concerts at the Great Hall of the MoscowConservatory. In recent years he was invited by Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct the

New World Symphony in Miami; has appeared with vocalists Michelle De Young andThomas Hampson and with violinistJoshua Bell; was a panel member for several sym-

posia with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and, as artistic advisor to Chamber Music

San Francisco, appeared in concert in its inaugural season. Much in demand as a

teacher and coach in young artists' programs from Yale University and the Cincinnati

School of Music to San Francisco's Merola Program and Houston Grand Opera, he

has accompanied song recitals with vocalists including Frederica von Stade (with whomhe appeared at Tanglewood last summer) , Franz Grundheber, Laura Claycomb, and

Deborah Voigt.

Kirk Bookman

Kirk Bookman (production supervisor and lighting designer) has designed the light-

ing for numerous New York productions, including What Then at the Ohio Theater,

The Cook at Intar Theatre 53, Recent Tragic Events at Playwrights Horizons (starring

Heather Graham), and Shanghai Moon at Drama Department (starring Charles Bush).

His credits for the National Actors Theatre on Broadway are The Sunshine Boys (Jack

Klugman and Tony Randall), The Gin Game (Julie Harris and Charles Durning),

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Right You Are. For the Irish Repertory Company in NewYork, his presentations include Bedbound, Playboy of the Western World, Eclipsed, and two

productions directed by Tony Walton, The Importance ofBeing Earnest and Major Barbara.

Other New York productions include Mondo Drama, Havana Is Waiting, Force Continuum,

My One Good Nerve (starring Ruby Dee), The Green Heart at Manhattan Theatre Club,

The Shawl, Rude Entertainment, The Book ofLiz (David and Amy Sedaris), Les MIZrahi

(Isaac Mizrahi), Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, As Thousands Cheer, and June Moon.

Regionally, Mr. Bookman has designed at such notable theaters as Goodspeed Opera

House (Haddam, Connecticut), Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Geva Theatre

(Rochester, New York), Coconut Grove Playhouse (Miami, Florida), and Santa Fe

Stages (Santa Fe, New Mexico). Ballet credits include English National Ballet, Santiago

Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and Kansas City Ballet. Projects with the San Francisco Sym-

phony include The Thomashefskys, Of Thee I Sing, Oedipus Rex, The Nightingale, and AFlowering Tree. His most recent work is A Flowering Tree directed by Peter Sellars.

Linda Steinberg

Linda Steinberg (media designer) has served as executive director of The Thomashefsky

Project since it was founded in July 1998, in order to rescue the story of the Thoma-

shefskys and early American Yiddish theater's contribution to American cultural life, to

communicate this story with authenticity through the visual and performing arts, and

to preserve it in an accessible mode for future generations. During the prior decade

she was director of The Jewish Museum San Francisco, earning numerous awards for

arts excellence for the institution and personal awards for publication and exhibition

design. She has also been curator of collections for the National Museum of American

Jewish History in Philadelphia, associate director of the Center for the Arts at the

University ofJudaism in Los Angeles, and director of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in

Simi Valley, California. In addition to being on the national lecture circuit with themes

on Jewish and Israeli art history, Ms. Steinberg has taught on the art faculties of the

University ofJudaism's Lee College for Jewish Studies, Los Angeles; the California

College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland; and San Francisco State University. Among the

institutions for which she has served as guest curator or arts consultant are the MuseumofJewish Heritage, New York City; the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, NewYork City; Moore College of Art, Philadelphia; the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles; and

the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A visiting scholar at Stanford University, she

is currently working on a book about the Thomashefskys.

Naomi Zapata

Naomi Zapata (associate production manager) is honored to be working with the

exceptional Thomashefsky Company again after a successful engagement in Miami

Beach. A longtime South Florida resident, Ms. Zapata has worked with such organiza-

tions there as Acme Acting Company, Florida Shakespeare Theatre, Florida Grand

Opera, Coconut Grove Playhouse, the New World Symphony, and Mosaic Theatre,

where she is currently the resident stage manager. New York associations include

Brooklyn Academy of Music, La MaMa E.T.C., and Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.

Naomi holds a B.F.A. in stage management from North Carolina School of the Arts.

Boston Symphony Orchestra

First Violins

Tamara Smirnova

Alexander Velinzon

Bonnie Bewick

Julianne Lee

Nancy Bracken

Glen Cherry

Jennie ShamesGerald Elias

Second Violins

Haldan Martinson

Ronald KnudsenRonan Lefkowitz

Frank PowdermakerCaroline Pliszka

Christopher Wu

Violas

Cathy Basrak

Edward Gazouleas

Michael Zaretsky

Kazuko Matsusaka

Lisa Suslowicz

Kathryn Sievers

Cellos

Martha Babcock

Sato KnudsenAdam Esbensen

Owen Young

Basses

Benjamin Levy

Todd Seeber

Flute

Elizabeth Ostling

Piccolo

Cynthia Meyers

Clarinet

Thomas Martin

Trumpet/Cornet

David Krauss

Bruce Hall

Trombone

Toby Oft

Percussion

Lee Vinson

James Gwin

Keyboard

Peter Grunberg

Librarian

Marshall Burlingame

Orchestra Personnel

Bruce CreditorAssistant Personnel Manager

Whether they make us laugh, cry or simply smile, the performing arts do much more than

merely entertain. The Bank of America Foundation is proud to support Tanglewood and its

education initiatives for Massachusetts students.

Visit us at www.bankofamerica.com.

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