An opera based on the sensational trial of Adolf Eichmann—one of the principal architects of the Holocaust—will have its world premiere this weekend at the Bucharest National Opera.
The Eichmann Trial, which was composed by Gil Shohat and spearheaded by Noam Semel, the chairman of the Institute for Israeli Drama, and Tova Ben Nun-Cherbis, the president of the Jewish Education Network in Romania, has been billed as part of a broader effort to commemorate the Holocaust using culture as a tool.
“This is more than a performance—it’s a mission,” says Ben Nun-Cherbis, “history is essential and learning from the past strengthens the present and prepares the future.”
Framed around the 1961 trial of Eichmann, the opera brings to stage the emotional testimonies provided by survivors and the tense courtroom exchanges that followed while also broaching behind-the-scenes topics such as the pressure West Germany applied on Israel in a bid to skirt the subject of collective guilt.
Joining Hitler’s National Socialist Party and the SS in 1932, Eichmann quickly rose through the ranks, earning a reputation as an expert on ‘Jewish matters.’
As the war proceeded, he was present at the infamous Wannsee Conference, a 1942 meeting that rubberstamped “the final solution to the Jewish question.”
With this industrial-scale genocide approved, Eichmann was charged with organizing the transport of Jews from the ghettos to the gas chambers—known for his ruthless efficiency, he proved excellent at this work.
After the war he fled to Argentina, but after being identified he was kidnapped by Mossad operatives in 1960 and smuggled to Israel to face justice. Sentenced to death following a high-profile trial, Eichmann was executed by hanging in 1962. “I die believing in God” were his final words.
Famously, the journalist Hannah Arendt described Eichmann as being the definition of “the banality of evil,” and his life has since been the subject of several award-winning books, documentaries and films.
Now, The Eichmann Trial potentially stands to join these greats. “This is the ninth opera I have written and is by far the most expansive, grand, and significant of them all,” says composer Gil Shohat.
Describing it as his biggest challenge to date, Shohat’s work features nearly five hours of music, 1,000 pages of score, 6,000 pages of orchestral parts and 800 pages of vocal score.
“The main reason I composed this much music for the opera owes to the historical importance of the subject matter,” he says. “For the Jewish people, certainly since the days of the Bible, there has been no event as foundational and significant as the Holocaust.”
For Shohat, the opera—which is the first ever large-scale opera addressing the Holocaust—took on an intensely personal meaning.
“The beginning of the work was extremely difficult,” he says. “I am a grandson of Holocaust survivors; my maternal grandparents were born in Warsaw, and they were the only members of their family who managed to escape to Russia when World War II broke out.
“All of the rest of their family members—siblings, parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren—were brutally murdered by the Nazis,” he adds. “I grew up in this atmosphere. My grandmother's tears, until the day of her death, could have filled the entire Danube River.”
It is these recollections, admits Shohat, that inspired his music. “All of the melodies in this opera, from the first to the last, were written while thinking of them—an intimate response to their memory, a response from a loving grandson saying ‘thank you’ for the life they miraculously gave me.”
Promising a haunting and moving experience, Shohat’s opera stands to leave a deep impact that lingers long after the curtain call. “I tried to infuse humanity into the inhuman, a sign of life within death, a rare flower in the field of hell, human compassion in a galaxy of evil,” he adds.
“This is more than a performance—it’s a mission,” says Ben Nun-Cherbis, “history is essential and learning from the past strengthens the present and prepares the future.”
Framed around the 1961 trial of Eichmann, the opera brings to stage the emotional testimonies provided by survivors and the tense courtroom exchanges that followed while also broaching behind-the-scenes topics such as the pressure West Germany applied on Israel in a bid to skirt the subject of collective guilt.
Joining Hitler’s National Socialist Party and the SS in 1932, Eichmann quickly rose through the ranks, earning a reputation as an expert on ‘Jewish matters.’
As the war proceeded, he was present at the infamous Wannsee Conference, a 1942 meeting that rubberstamped “the final solution to the Jewish question.”
With this industrial-scale genocide approved, Eichmann was charged with organizing the transport of Jews from the ghettos to the gas chambers—known for his ruthless efficiency, he proved excellent at this work.
After the war he fled to Argentina, but after being identified he was kidnapped by Mossad operatives in 1960 and smuggled to Israel to face justice. Sentenced to death following a high-profile trial, Eichmann was executed by hanging in 1962. “I die believing in God” were his final words.
Famously, the journalist Hannah Arendt described Eichmann as being the definition of “the banality of evil,” and his life has since been the subject of several award-winning books, documentaries and films.
Now, The Eichmann Trial potentially stands to join these greats. “This is the ninth opera I have written and is by far the most expansive, grand, and significant of them all,” says composer Gil Shohat.
Describing it as his biggest challenge to date, Shohat’s work features nearly five hours of music, 1,000 pages of score, 6,000 pages of orchestral parts and 800 pages of vocal score.
“The main reason I composed this much music for the opera owes to the historical importance of the subject matter,” he says. “For the Jewish people, certainly since the days of the Bible, there has been no event as foundational and significant as the Holocaust.”
For Shohat, the opera—which is the first ever large-scale opera addressing the Holocaust—took on an intensely personal meaning.
“The beginning of the work was extremely difficult,” he says. “I am a grandson of Holocaust survivors; my maternal grandparents were born in Warsaw, and they were the only members of their family who managed to escape to Russia when World War II broke out.
“All of the rest of their family members—siblings, parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren—were brutally murdered by the Nazis,” he adds. “I grew up in this atmosphere. My grandmother's tears, until the day of her death, could have filled the entire Danube River.”
It is these recollections, admits Shohat, that inspired his music. “All of the melodies in this opera, from the first to the last, were written while thinking of them—an intimate response to their memory, a response from a loving grandson saying ‘thank you’ for the life they miraculously gave me.”
Promising a haunting and moving experience, Shohat’s opera stands to leave a deep impact that lingers long after the curtain call. “I tried to infuse humanity into the inhuman, a sign of life within death, a rare flower in the field of hell, human compassion in a galaxy of evil,” he adds.
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