The Sorceress will be presented as an enhanced reading as part of our Yiddish Theatre Restoration Project. Audiences will have the exclusive opportunity to see this production on stage with costumes, lights, and projections for the first time in over 80 years.
This 1879 operetta by the “father of Yiddish theater” was the first Yiddish theater piece produced in America by Boris Thomashevsky—at the age of 14. A fairy-tale-like story of an innocent young heroine, her wicked stepmother, dashing fiancé, an itinerant peddler, and a local witch is set to a delightful musical score full of memorable tunes. Yiddish with English and Russian supertitles.
NATIONAL YIDDISH THEATRE FOLKSBIENE AT THE MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE has been working to restore lost operettas for its own productions, opera companies around the world, and posterity.
The restored score of Di Kishefmakherin (The Sorceress) includes partial arrangements found in the YIVO Vilna Collection, which was rescued from destruction by the famed Paper Brigade during the Nazi occupation. The orchestrations date back to 1916.