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Jewish Post and News in Winnipeg - BY Matt Bellan
Three internationally- acclaimed Yiddish singers
wowed a crowd of hundreds at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue June 5. Heather Lauren Klein of San Francisco, Adrienne Cooper of New York and Theresa Tova of Toronto took part in a program billed as The Three Yiddish Divas. Theirs was the final show in the Mameloshen 2008 Festival of Yiddish Entertainment at Culture. Presented by the I.L. Peretz Folk School Endowment Trust and the Rady Jewish Community Centre, the festival - the first of its kind here - received grants from the trust, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, and private contributions. Laurie Mainster of the trust told the capacity crowd the festival was the logical next step after a series of well-attended Yiddish concerts and film festivals the trust and the Rady JCC have presented in the past few years. “We felt the community was ready for something a little bigger,” Mainster said. Among others, he thanked Rady JCC staff members Tamar Barr and Ilana Abrams, and Kinzey Posen, emcee for the festival, for helping him organize the five-event festival. “We’re preparing to bring you a second edition next year,” Mainster said, to audience applause. Posen, a longtime Winnipeg klezmer musician and CBC Radio producer, offered his trademark, playful humor as he introduced the three divas. “Joanne Borts will not be here this evening,” he began, referring to a New York “diva” originally scheduled to perform with Cooper and Tova. “Rumor has it she has was told to meet with Barack Obama to be the next vice-president.” Klein, a San Francisco-based Yiddish singer, joined Cooper and Tova - Tova also performed here last year - in the June 5 show, where they performed together and solo. Each offered wide-ranging, richly resonant voices of opera star quality, alternating between English and Yiddish. Accompanying them on piano was Dan Rosengard from New York, with Winnipeggers Rob Siwik on drums and Gilles Fournier on double bass. After the three singers’ rousing opening number, Let the River Run, Tova kibbitzed to the mainly elderly crowd: “I think we have to turn down our hearing aids.” (When they’re on too high, it can cause a ringing sound on the sound system, as a 90- something Jewish Winnipegger in the front row proved at another Mameloshen 2000 event.) “Where were you during the sound check?” Tova added, jokingly. The trio then embarked on a jazzy, finger-snapping version of the Yiddish classic, Abi Gezint, harmonizing well. Klein, Cooper and Tova next engaged in a lighthearted discussion of “what makes a diva”, referring to the title of their show. “Diva is from the Italian - the principal (female) singer in an opera,” Cooper noted. “But my gutteh freint, we’re not those kinds of divas,” Tova added. “Mein nommen eez Toveleh.” (“My name is Toveleh.”) Klein performed a fastmoving number, Tsigayner Meydl (Gypsy Girl), with the audience clapping along. “For a true Yiddish diva, Yiddish comes in all forms and styles,” Tova said next. Then she launched into a half-Yiddish version of Cole Porter’s jazzy classic, Night and Day; she gave it the Yiddish title, Tog un Nacht, playfully describing it as “a little Yiddish folk song” - the “teek teek tok foon a zayger (the tic toc sound of a watch).” Tova showed an incredibly wide vocal range as she sang this tune, alternating Yiddish and English lyrics, with one of the musicians producing the tic toc sound of a ticking watch. Cooper then sang a “new wonderful Yiddish song, Borsht/Gefilte Fish”, punctuating that comical number with Hassidic “yie didee dies”. She, too, showed an unusually wide vocal range, starting low and easily sliding into a high soprano, as the audience clapped along and shouted a refrain: “Gefilte fish!” Tova later introduced a deeply moving song with a Holocaust theme, Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern (Under Your White Stars). “My dear God, I grant you every single thing I own,” she sang slowly, in a hauntingly beautiful voice, expressing the singer’s despair, addressing God. The concert closed with all three singing Shir La Shalom, a Hebrew “song of peace”, blending their rich voices in gorgeous harmonies, and a final Yiddish number, Zayt Gezunt (Be Healthy). Many members of the crowd then rushed out to buy souvenirs - CDs of each of these three powerful singers of Jewish and other material. It would be an understatement to say sales were brisk. 16 THE JEWISH POST & NEWS, Wednesday, June 25, 2008 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Presents a new level of service & sophistication to bar/bat mitzvah photography. Call or email to arrange a consultation (204) 946-0590 info@studio448.com ELAINE HALPERT of STUDIO 448 3 Yiddish Divas combine humor, pathos in final Mameloshen 2008 concert Singers mix jazz, Hassidic, other music, get crowd clapping along HEATHER LAUREN KLEIN (at far left), Adrienne Cooper (middle) and Theresa Tova sing an opening number in their concert at Shaarey Zedek, The Three Yiddish Divas. LAURIE MAINSTER of the I.L. Peretz Folk School Endowment Trust, one of the key organizers of Mameloshen 2008, tells the crowd: “We’re preparing to bring you a second edition next year.”
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