release Eybike Mame/10th anniversary of Wergo Jewish Music Series

[Joel E. Rubin <rubin...>]

The following CD will be available as of tomorrow in Europe. It should be
available in the US at the beginning of October. A lot of list members
contributed in various ways to the project, including Itzik Gottesman, who
wrote the text synopses, Julian Futter, Bret Werb, Eliott Kahn, and Lorin
Sklamberg. [Sorry if we forgot anybody!]

For immediate release:

Di Eybike Mame (The Eternal Mother):
Women in Yiddish Theater and Popular Song, 1905-1929
Wergo SM 1625-2 
Available August 4, 2003 (U.S. distribution: Harmonia Mundi USA, beginning
ca. October 2003)

We are pleased to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Joel Rubin and Rita
Ottens¹ Jewish Music Series for Wergo with ³Di Eybike Mame², the first CD
anthology of recordings featuring women of the Yiddish stage. This carefully
edited production documents the enormous variety of music present during the
period 1890-1930, from folksong to music hall and vaudeville, liturgical
song to operetta and musical comedy. The booklet includes a detailed essay
on Yiddish theater music and the role of women in Yiddish popular song.

Despite prohibitions in traditional Judaism against the singing of women in
the presence of men, biblical figures such as Miriam and Deborah stand for a
female contribution to music within Jewish history. In the 20th century,
singers like Sophie Kurtzer, Shaindele and Batsheva dedicated themselves to
the Jewish liturgy. Ironically known as khazntes (lit. ³cantors¹ wives²),
they were compelled to practice their art outside of the synagogue on
vaudeville stages and remained exceptions to the rule ? despite a stylistic
closeness to the great male cantors such as Yossele Rosenblatt and Gershon
Sirota. Yiddish popular songs depicted a great variety of women¹s roles,
including not only deceived girls, deserted wives and long-suffering
mothers, but also suffragettes, adulteresses and eccentric spinsters. Its
stars ? often singer, actress, dancer and impresario all rolled up into one
? charmed the Jewish world from Warsaw to Buenos Aires and played an
important role in the expansion of gender roles. The singer and actress
Bertha Kalish from Lemberg was compared favorably to the great actress Sarah
Bernhardt, and Regina Prager¹s voice could have held its own with that of a
Wagnerian heroine. Isa Kremer set new standards with her art song
interpretations of Yiddish folksongs, the tomboyish Molly Picon wrote her
own lyrics, and melodramatic Jennie Goldstein managed her own theater at the
age of 16. Even today one encounters the odd 80 year-old retiree who is
still enraptured by the sex appeal of Nellie Casman.

http://www.wergo.de/

Joel E. Rubin, Ph.D.
Mellon Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellow
Cornell University
Department of Music
101 Lincoln Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
USA
Tel.: (607) 255-7102

rubin @ rubin-ottens.com
jer48 @ cornell.edu

http://www.rubin-ottens.com

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