Composed By: Ofer Ben-Amots | Direction and Design: Jeremy Wilhelm | Video Design: Sheri Wills
Performances: The Segal Center for Performing Arts, Montreal, Canada 1/08 | International Summer Academy of Music, Michelstadt, Germany 8/08 | The E. Gaylord Cornerstorne Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO 10/08 | Mizel Arts and Culture Center, Denver, USA 11/08 | Houston Jewish Community Center, USA 11/09
The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds is a multimedia chamber opera composed by Ofer Ben-Amots and inspired by S. Ansky’s timeless Yiddish play of the same name. A young woman, Leah, near-death, awakens to the whisper of a clarinet. She slowly realizes the sound is the spirit of her dead lover Hannan. As the rest of the opera unfolds in flashback, she must choose between life with a man she does not know and death with her beloved, who has possessed her as a Dybbuk: a deceased soul who takes possession of a living body. The music intertwines folk elements with contemporary textures to create a haunting, self-contained world, while multiple video projections and dance combine to tell a powerful story of faith, mysticism, and passion between two ill-fated lovers.