The recent musical performance, Celebrating Chayela in Song, part of the Chayela Rosenthal: Wunderkind of the Vilna Ghetto Theatre Exhibition at the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, provided an opportunity for a number of Cape Town’s Jewish performers to showcase their talents.
The musical concert celebrated the career of the late Chayela Rosenthal and the work of her hugely talented brother, Leyb Rozenthal. Chayela, a survivor of the Vilna Ghetto and various camps during the Second World War, settled in Cape Town in the 1950s, and enjoyed an international theatre and music career until her untimely passing in 1979.
Leyb, a child prodigy for his work in Yiddish literature and music, did not survive, having been killed just two days before liberation by the Russians from the Nazi yoke. But, some of his music work enjoyed renewed attention during the concert.
For many of the performers, learning songs in Yiddish did not come easily, although, during the many hours of practice, they became more familiar with the words and the nuances of the language. As opera singer and teacher, Beverley Chiat, points out, ”Yiddish takes a little more time for me to learn as it’s not a language I studied in depth like Italian, French and German. But everything eventually came together.”
On the other hand, Ivor Joffe, Cantor of the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation for 21 years, a seasoned performer, enjoyed singing in Yiddish. “It’s a very expressive language,” he points out.
“I am comfortable with the Yiddish language, having performed in the Yiddish Song Festival for many years. I am so happy that the Rozenthal family’s Yiddish music could be shared in such an elegant manner.”
The exposure to the Yiddish language and songs served as a learning experience for all the performers. “From the number ‘Yisroilik’, a song written by Leyb, I got to understand more about the lives of the Jewish people, especially the children in the Ghetto and in the camps,” explains 13-year-old Zoë Modlinne, who has already enjoyed an international career in musical theatre, having secured the lead role of Matilda in Matilda the Musical which took her on tour around Asia.
Despite having grown up in a household with Yiddish-speaking parents, Chayela’s daughter, Zola Piatka Shuman, only came to use Yiddish herself in recent years. “While I understand 90% of it, I can’t speak it well at all,” she says. “Pronunciation is easy for me, but learning the lyrics of the songs we sang by heart was not at all easy!” She has become far more comfortable with the language, however, and wrote her first song in Yiddish in 2019, ‘Hert Zich Tsu — We will remember you’.
For many of the performers, their decision to follow a career in the musical world can be traced to their school years. The names of various teachers stand out — Mrs Mitchell from Weizmann Primary School; Gracie Sklar; Richard Freedman and Lesley Rabinowitz at Herzlia Middle School; Liz Staughton at Kings Road Primary School; among others.
In addition to the actual performers in the show, there was a trio of musicians, which included a figure well-known on the local Jewish music scene. Matthew Reid has had a long and passionate love for Eastern European folk music and Jewish Klezmer music in particular. He served as musical director for the Cape Town annual Yiddish Song Festival for 11 consecutive years, and played in Aviva Pelham’s production of Santa’s Story, which travelled extensively beyond South Africa.
Following a passion to perform has created many opportunities to see the world, as Beverley Chiat has experienced. Her operatic career has taken her to many parts of the world, including The Netherlands, Bahrain, parts of Asia, the Middle East, New York (on Broadway) and Israel.
Zoë Modlinne, while still at school, looks forward to a career in the theatre. Her co-performers are all thrilled about having been able to pursue their own passion for music and performance as a career option. They’ve enjoyed incredible opportunities to perform with other musicians they admire, to travel to different parts of the world, and to enjoy the satisfaction of loving what they do every day.
Klezmer music today
According to Matthew Reid, “Klezmer is enjoying a revival and has an enthusiastic community of adherents globally.”
“Essentially it’s music built around certain modes or scales with its popular repertoire and way of interpreting the musical passages. The popular instruments are clarinet, violin, accordion and bass.”
• Published in the August 2023 issue – Click here to start reading.
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