An extraordinary Australian production, Stories from the Violins of Hope, will have its Australian premiere at the newly renovated Bondi Pavilion Theatre, for a 3-week season from 31 May to 18 June.
Combining theatre and live music, Stories from the Violins of Hope will bring to life the powerful true stories of violins played during the Holocaust, in ghettos, forests and concentration camps. It will track the many violins which were saved during and after World War II by the Weinsteins, a family of luthiers (makers and repairers of stringed instruments).
The play is based on many conversations co-writer Lisa Pearl Rosenbaumhad with Israeli violin maker Amnon Weinstein, who owned many violins, which were sold to him by people who were captured during the Holocaust.Rosenbaum also did research on the individual violins which his father and his son restored.
In 2022 playwright Ronda Spinak, founder and artistic director of The Braid, the largest independent Jewish theatre in the US, travelled to Sydney to workshop the play with Moira Blumenthal Productions.The famed Violins of Hope have been featured in books, print, film and television and now in a new stage production, which was adapted from the original filmed play of the same name, written by Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum. The film, popular with diverse audiences, was presented at the United Nations in 2021 to commemorate Kristallnacht.
The cast comprises Barry French, Laurence Coy, Kate Bookallil, Sophie Gregg, and Lloyd Allison-Young. The play was written by Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum & Ronda Spinak, directed byMoira Blumenthal, set design by Tom Bannerman andcostume design by Andrea Tam. Dr Noreen Green will perform on piano and is the music curator, she is founder and conductor of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony Orchestra. On violin is Ben Adler (founder of Australia’s premier klezmer fusion band CHUTNEY and Nomad String Quartet and occasional ACO player.
Adler will perform on violins which belonged to Holocaust survivors. One is being flown out from the US which belonged to half-Jewish ballerina-actor Joyce Vanderveen.He will also perform on a violin owned by Emanuel Fisher, a German Jew who played with the Weintraub Syncopators, and who fled Germany in 1936 to settle in Sydney.
Violins of Hope were played by humble klezmers in Eastern Europe and by virtuosi of the finest orchestras, each has a story to tell in the play. The violinist who cannot bear to play the violin of her murdered Jewish friend but wants her to be remembered…The railway worker who rescued a violin thrown from a train bound for a concentration camp and after the war, honors its owner’s last wish….The father who calls his violin “Friend’ because playing it for food saved his family from starvation….The waltz that saved a violinist from execution. The boy whose violin is his avenging weapon against the Nazis.
“As you hear the stories of the violins, you’re also hearing the incredible family stories woven through, and that’s what makes a stage play different from a concert,” Ronda Spinak.
Luthier Moshe Weinsteinfounded his violin-making and repair shop in Israel in1939. Heowned many violins Jewish people had sold to him who were caught up inHolocaust and Moshe stashed them away in an attic for over 50 years. Some had been rescued from musicians who could not bear to play German instruments, some came from survivors who arrived in Israel after the war with little more than their violins. Every violin came with a story. When Moshe passed away, his son Amnon took over the collection, named theViolins of Hope. Through concerts, exhibitions and other projects, these instruments serve to educate and memorialize lost lives.
Violins of Hope were all played by humble klezmers in Eastern Europe and by virtuosi of the finest orchestras. Famous violinists who’ve had close ties with the Violins of Hope include Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Shlomo Mintz,Hagai Shaham, Daniel Hope Niv Ashkenazi (who has a Violin of Hope on permanent loan from the Weinsteins, which he played in the original filmed version of the play) They have been played by The Berlin Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Israel Philharmonic, members of the Berlin Philharmonic and in concerts all over the world.
Stories from the Violins of Hope
31 May to 18 June
Bondi Pavillion, Bondi
Bookings: moirablumenthalproductions
Days/times:
Wednesday 7.30pm Thursday 11am and 7.30pm | Friday 11am | Saturday 7.30pm | Sunday 2pm and 7.30pm
Tickets Full $75 | Seniors $70 | Concessions & under 30 $65 Adult group 20 plus $58
Student $40 Preview $60
School Groups $20 School performance available weekdays – 11.00am, 2.00pm, 7.30pm
+ 2 x complimentary teacher tickets
For schools and group bookings contact: Val Davis at: valmark@bigpond.net.au or call 0414 838184
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