The Golem: An Opera in Two Acts
A CCOT CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTMusic by Andrea Clearfield Libretto by Ellen Frankel
Background, Themes, and Setting: The Golem is inspired by an ancient Jewish legend about a mute creature fashioned out of clay, a golem, created by a mystical rabbi to save the Jews of 16th century Prague from an anti-Semitic conspiracy. The opera’s prologue dramatizes the creation of the Golem as portrayed in the legend, but then the story takes a new direction. The rest of the action takes place after the Golem has foiled the pogrom, focusing instead on the themes of human arrogance, the will to power and the dangers of forbidden knowledge. As in the tales of Faust and Frankenstein, hubris inevitably leads to tragedy and the sacrifice of innocents.
The opera’s dramatic arc follows twin plots: the fateful relationship between the Golem and Rabbi Judah’s youngest daughter Realina, and the fierce struggle between rival worldviews emerging during this period--the old science vs. the new, medieval certainty vs. scientific doubt, faith vs. reason—each claiming a monopoly on Truth. These two plots intersect and eventually converge, as the quest for Truth leads all characters to the perilous boundaries of human knowledge and power. The opera consists of a prologue, and eight scenes in two acts. There are seven principal roles, two women and five men. Act I alternates between the Loews’ two-room house in Prague’s Jewish Quarter and Hradcany Castle. Act II takes place at the castle. There is one intermission.
Plot Synopsis:
Prologue, on the banks of the Moldau. Four dancers, representing Rabbi Judah Loew, two of his disciples, and Joseph the Golem, dramatize the Golem’s creation in pantomime. An ensemble of the opera’s actors function as the chorus, narrating the circumstances of the Golem’s birth and introducing the leitmotifs of the opera. Scene 1, in front of the Loews’ house in the Jewish Quarter. The Jews gather to praise Emperor Rudolph for saving them from a disastrous pogrom. At the end of the scene, the Emperor invites his friend Rabbi Judah to attend his birthday party.
Scene 2, inside the Loews’ house. Acknowledging to the Golem that it was in fact Joseph, not the Emperor, who thwarted the pogrom, the rabbi warns Joseph that he must never reveal his true identity, lest he attract too much attention. Increasingly worried about Joseph’s unstable character, Rabbi Judah wonders whether he should destroy his creation before it’s too late.Scene 3, a laboratory in the basement of Hradcany Castle. British alchemist Edward Kelley, a convicted counterfeiter and con artist, has convinced the Emperor that he will soon turn lead into gold as promised. But the emperor is losing patience. Rudolph issues an ultimatum: either Kelley produces gold in three days or returns to the royal dungeon. But first he must attend the Emperor’s birthday party.
Scene 4, on the parapet of Hradcany Castle. Emperor Rudolph invites Tycho Brahe, who is star-gazing atop the castle, to his birthday party. They discuss science, particularly astronomy, and all the changes occurring as the medieval world gives way to modernity.
Scene 5, in the Loews’ house. Realina, youngest of the Loews’ six daughters, dreams of becoming a Kabbalist like her renowned father, instead of a traditional wife and mother. Her father debates whether to induct her into the holy mysteries, despite his promise to his wife Perel not to do so. He reveals to Realina the secret of Joseph’s origins and also shares his fears that the Golem might someday escape his control. Realina pleads with her father to teach her Kabbalah so that they can complete the Golem’s creation, making him fully human, and thus no longer a threat. Rebbetzin Perel enters and upbraids her husband for breaking his promise. Perel declares that she will arrange an immediate marriage for Realina, ending her daughter’s foolish fantasies about becoming a mystic. Left alone, Rabbi Judah uses his mystical powers to endow the Golem with human feelings, but he is unable to grant him speech. He pities the Golem, who will never be able to marry, make love, or have children with a human companion. Realina returns to the empty study and pours out her heart to Joseph. She points out how alike they are, both controlled by others’ wills. She gives her locket to the Golem. Using her father’s mystical books, she tries her hand at kabbalistic magic, but cannot control such power. The objects she animates spin out of control. Joseph, too, becomes animated and seizes Realina to dance with her. Only Rabbi Judah’s entrance halts the mayhem and frees Realina from Joseph’s grasp.
Intermission.
Scene 6, in the royal chambers. To celebrate his birthday Rudolph invites three guests: his Imperial Mathematician, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe; British alchemist Edward Kelly; and Rabbi Judah Loew. The four men debate the relative truth of natural science, alchemy, and faith. Rudolph challenges Brahe and Kelley to a public disputation, naming Rabbi Judah as judge. Rabbi Judah fears that no matter what his verdict, the Jews will pay a price.
Scene 7, the plaza in front of the castle. Before a crowd, Emperor Rudolph questions Tycho Brahe and Edward Kelley about religion, philosophy, and science. Rabbi Judah tries to keep tempers cool. The Golem suddenly bursts on stage, pursued by Realina, who tries to protect her father from Joseph’s attack. The Golem grabs Realina and drags her offstage.
Scene 8, in the castle garden. Rabbi Judah begs the Golem to release Realina, but Joseph clasps her so powerfully that he unintentionally crushes her to death. Rabbi Judah laments humanity’s foolhardy attempts to play God. He then rubs the aleph off the Golem’s forehead, thereby changing the Hebrew word emet, truth, into mayt, death. The Golem crumbles back into inert clay.
About the Creators
Andrea Clearfield (Composer)
Andrea Clearfield is an award winning American composer of music for orchestra, chorus, instrumental and vocal soloists, chamber ensembles, dance, film and multi-media collaborations. She has been praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for her “virtuosity”, “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces”, the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing”, and by the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening” orchestration. Her works for orchestra, chorus, instrumental and vocal soloists, chamber ensembles and dance are performed widely in the U.S. and internationally.
Performances include Kabo Omowale (2008) commissioned and premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra for narrator, chorus and orchestra and performed again by The Philadelphia Orchestra with Charlotte Blake Alston and the Philadelphia All City Choir in January, 2010. Other recent works include Dream Variations (2008), commissioned by The Debussy Trio and premiered with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall; Lung-Ta (2009) for Network for New Music at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia; Our Better Angels (2009), choral cantata for the Turtle Creek Chorale at Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas and Rhapsodie (2008), for flute, harp and string trio for Dolce Suono Chamber Music Concert Series, premiered at First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. Her trio, “…and low to the lake falls home” (A Memoriam for Joseph and Margaret Wincenc) was commissioned by internationally renowned flutist Carol Wincenc and premiered at the Morgan Library on Feb. 22, 2010 by Les Amies Trio: Carol Wincenc and New York Philharmonic Principal players, Cynthia Phelps (viola) and Nancy Allen (harp).
She has composed seven cantatas/oratorios for chorus, soloists and orchestra, and she will be writing another oratorio for Singing City Chorus and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia for performance in April, 2011 as part of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Festival. Her cantata, The Golem Psalms, was commissioned and premiered by the Mendelssohn Club, Alan Harler, artistic director, with Sanford Sylvan, baritone, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in 2006 and the work was performed again at Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia on March 21, 2010. Her hour-long cantata on breast cancer, The Long Bright, commissioned by David Wolman, was premiered at the Kimmel Center, 2004 with soprano Hila Plitmann, the Temple University Music Prep Children’s Chorus and Orchestra 2001 and was performed again at Royce Hall in Los Angeles on March 11, 2010. Fire and Ice, choral cantata with soloists and orchestra to the poetry of Robert Frost, commissioned by The Handel Society of Dartmouth College in celebration of their 200 Year Anniversary, was premiered in 2007 at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Robert Duff, conductor. Her cantata on biblical women, Women of Valor, was premiered at Royce Hall with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in 2000 and a story on the work was broadcast nationally on NPR’s “All Things Considered”. The chamber version will be premiered at the Mozarteum in Austria in 2011.
Her Violin Concerto, Romanza, was commissioned and premiered by Orchestra 2001 with soloist Gloria Justen in 2007 and recorded with the Russian Philharmonic in Moscow. The Rim of Love, commissioned by Astral Artists, was premiered at the Kimmel Center in 2006 with Disella Larusdottir and Symphony in C under the direction of Rossen Milanov. The River of God (2003) commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for chorus and organ, was premiered at the inaugural ceremony for the new organ at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, PA and the west coast premiere took place at Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2006.
Ms. Clearfield was recently awarded the American Academy in Rome Fellowship from the American Composers Forum, 2010. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, where she was the recipient of the Aaron Copland Residency for an American Composer, The MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, where she was awarded the Hannah S. and Samuel A. Cohn Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale, The Banff Centre, I-Park, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Millay Colony and the Wurltizer Foundation among others. This summer she will be a composer fellow at the Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She has received numerous grants and awards from organizations including the NEA, ASCAP, the Leeway Foundation, the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, the Independence Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer and the International Alliance for Women in Music. Her works are published by Oxford University Press, Jomar Press and International Opus and have been recorded by MSR Classics, Crystal Records, 2L Norwegian and Albany Labels and Centaur Records.
She has served on the composition faculty at The University of the Arts since 1986. A native of Philadelphia, she received a D.M.A. in composition from Temple University where she was a student of Maurice Wright, a two-time winner of the John Heller Memorial Award for Excellence in Composition and the first composer to receive the prestigious Presidential Fellowship. She was honored by Temple University in 2004 as a distinguished alumna. She received an M.M. in Piano from The University of the Arts as a student of Susan Starr, and a BA in Music from Muhlenberg College where she studied with her mentor Margaret Garwood, graduating with Summa Cum Lauda and Phi Beta Kappa honors. Other teachers include Jonathan Kramer (orchestration) and George Tsontakis (composition). Ms. Clearfield has been the pianist in the Relâche Ensemble since 1990. Active as a pianist, she has performed and recorded with numerous groups, including the Court of the Dalai Lama. A strong believer in creating community through music, she is also the founder, producer and host of the Philadelphia Salon a concert series featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, multimedia and world music, celebrating its 23rd year and winner of the Best of Philly Award, 2008.
Ellen Frankel (Librettist)
Dr. Ellen Frankel served for eighteen years as the Editor in Chief and CEO of The Jewish Publication Society, the oldest and only nondenominational, non-profit publisher of Jewish works in English, and was named its first Editor Emerita upon her retirement in 2009. She is the author of nine published books, including The Classic Tales, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols, The Five Books of Miriam, and The JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible, which won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton.
For the past ten years, Frankel has been writing libretti, working with Philadelphia composer Andrea Clearfield. In May 2000, the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony premiered Clearfield’s cantata, Women of Valor, which included two pieces by Frankel, “Sarah” and “Hannah.” In 2005, Philadelphia’s prestigious Mendelssohn Club Choir commissioned Ms. Clearfield to write a new oratorio; Frankel wrote the libretto.
The resulting work, “The Golem Psalms,” inspired by the ancient Jewish legend of the Golem, premiered at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2006, performed by the Mendelssohn Club and the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, with Sanford Sylvan as baritone soloist. Since its premiere, the oratorio has also been performed at Haverford College by the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Choir and Orchestra (April 2007); Indiana University, performed by the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and the Conductor’s Orchestra, under conductor John Leonard, with Kenneth Pereira as baritone soloist (February 2009); and at Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, performed by the Temple University Symphony Orchestra and Combined Choirs, conducted by Alan Harler, with Sanford Sylvan again as baritone soloist (March 2010).
Following the success of “The Golem Psalms,” Frankel expanded her libretto into a full two-act opera, The Golem, retaining several pieces from the initial oratorio. Philadelphia’s Center City Opera Theater (CCOT), under artistic director Andrew Kurtz, has signed agreements with Frankel and Clearfield to help develop the work. A staged reading of a full draft of the libretto was held on May 17, 2009, under the direction of Charles Gilbert, artistic director of the Ira Brind Theater School at the University of the Arts. As work progresses, CCOT will schedule other staged readings as well as composition workshops, will spearhead fundraising efforts, and will offer expert consultation.
CCOT recently commissioned Frankel to write the libretto for another new opera, Slaying the Dragon, a two-act work inspired by actual events that took place in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the early 1990’s. In this true story, Larry Trapp, Grand Dragon of the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan, renounced a lifetime of hatred and violence after being befriended by a Jewish cantor and his wife. Ultimately, the cantor’s family took the terminally ill Trapp into their home, and he converted to Judaism before dying there. The opera will be premiered in Philadelphia in June 2012.
Dr. Frankel lives in Philadelphia with her husband. She has two grown children and two grandchildren.
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