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Music

Can you separate the art from the artist?: You Will Not Play Wagner

By Jewish Arts Collaborative

Published Aug 28, 2023

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This Curation is part of Combating Antisemitism.

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You Will Not Play Wagner | Trailer

Above: (1 min) Trailer for You Will Not Play Wagner, 2020.

 

Performing Wagner has been unofficially banned in Israel since the state’s creation because Wagner was a cultural touchstone of Nazism. But, could Wagner’s music transcend the antisemitic views of its creator?

 

You Will Not Play Wagner takes place in New York City and Tel Aviv as the characters Zoom across the COVID-19-plagued world. Ya’akov, a young Israeli upstart, provokes an uproar when he chooses to perform Wagner in the finals of an international competition for conductors. He comes into conflict with Esther, a Holocaust survivor and competition patron who has her own tragic connection with Wagner’s music, and Morris, the competition’s organizer.

Their arguments push the competition to the brink. Should Ya’akov conduct Wagner? Should the politics of the composer interfere with the quality of his art? To what extent do we honor the memory of the Holocaust, its survivors, and their descendants, without stifling the next generation? And would a Jewish Israeli conducting Wagner be treachery or triumph?

South African playwright Victor Gordon adapted his play for Zoom just before he passed away from COVID-19. This film is in his memory.

 

FIND A SCREENING NEAR YOU.

Run time: 64 minutes

Original language English, some Hebrew

 

Directed by: Lilia Levitina

Starring: Annette Miller, Ofek Cohen, Avi Hoffman

 

Executive Producer: Jewish Arts Collaborative

Producers: Ernest Aranov, Norman Lang, Rick Macomber, Annette Miller, Christo Tsiaras

 

Playwright: Victor Gordon

Screen Adaptation: Anna Ampleeva, Lilia Levitina

 

Boston Crew: Director of Photography Rick Macombe, Assistant DP Norman Lang, Assistant DP Christo Tsiaras, Sound Billy Rosenthal, Make-up by Elizabeth Stockman, Production Assistant Melody Mason, Violin player/Esther’s childhood self Olga Kamiinsky

Tel-Aviv Crew: Producer Ernest Aranov, Director of Photography Rolik Novitsky, Assistant DP Arina Ger, Sound Michael Gurevich, Production Assistants: Lena Charash and Moti Zahavi, Tamir Kurtatinsky, Alexei Benshtain, Musical Score: Mark Galinovsky, Lucas Syed

 

Editor and Sound Editor: Christo Tsiaras

 

Special Thanks: Anat and Yael Zahavi, Nadine Rosinoer, Olga Minsky, Michael Miller, Max Lifshin, John Escobar, Claudio Ragazzi, Michael Savikovsky, Zvi Polunsky, Emily Romm, Eugene and Eva Kaminsky, Michael Teplitsky at Theater Malenky, Gilad Alon & Bruno Amir at Cafe May 6, Govane Lohbauer at Shakespeare & Co, Ido Solomon at F.A.B. Defense, Mark Levitin, Ella Nikolaevsky, Maria Koreneva

 

You Will Not Play Wagner is an original piece by JArts TheaterWorks, commissioned by JArts and created in partnership with the Forward and the Consulate General of Israel to New England.

Talkback at the Miami Jewish Film Festival

Above: (30 min) Hosts of the Miami Jewish Film Festival 2023 in conversation with director Lilia Levitina and actor Avi Hoffman of You Will Not Play Wagner.

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JArts’ mission is to curate, celebrate, and build community around the diverse world of Jewish arts, culture, and creative expression. Our vision is of a more connected, engaged, and tolerant world inspired by Jewish arts and culture.

# Music

Reflections

Do you think art can truly be separated from the artist's personal beliefs or the historical context surrounding it? Performing Wagner has been unofficially banned in Israel since the creation of the state because he was a cultural touchstone of Nazism. But could Wagner’s music transcend the anti-Semitic views of its creator? When Ya’akov, an Israeli conductor, announces he will play Wagner in the finals of the Esther Greenbaum International Conductors’ Competition, Esther, a Holocaust survivor, must face a moral dilemma: whether the trauma of the past justifies stifling the future of young talent. Buried memories, nightmarish dreams uncovered -- Ya'akov and Esther, aided by Morris, the competition organizer, viscerally argue their opposing points of view from Tel-Aviv, the Berkshires, and Brooklyn. Across the COVID-plagued world and across historical, ethical, and personal domains, will they be able to hear each other? Starring Annette Miller, Ofek Cohen, and Avi Hoffman.   Director Lilia Levitina is an actress, producer, and writer who immigrated to the Boston area from the former Soviet Union in 1988. She brought with her a rich Russian theatrical tradition and a dream to do theater professionally. While working as a teacher by day, she founded a theater company -- Basement on the Hill Stage -- by night. What started in the basement of her house burst onto the Boston theater scene with acclaimed productions such as The Shawl and A Life in the Theater by David Mamet, The Promise by Aleksei Arbuzov, The Language of Kisses by Edmund de Santis, The Fox by Allan Miller, and others. Marking her 30 years in the US, Lilia conceived, produced, and performed a one-woman show From the Gray Notebook. Through memoir, poetry, and striking imagery, The Gray Notebook chronicles the journey of her generation of Jewish Russian immigrants across continents, languages, and cultures. You Will Not Play Wagner is Lilia's first movie.  
Words from Lilia:
You Will Not Play Wagner is dedicated to the memory of Victor Gordon, a South African Jewish playwright, who passed away of COVID in the middle of the play's adaptation for screen. As the cast and I faced the responsibility of honoring Victor's legacy, we pored over the characters’ psychology and uncovered layers of meaning in Victor's text. Beyond the central plot question of "to play or not to play Wagner in Israel," there are Jewish and universal questions of tikkun olam, the healing of the world. How does a person position themself and their people within the narratives of individual and collective trauma? Is tikkun olam possible without personal healing? In today's polarized world, can a conversation between people on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum bring hope? And of course and always -- what role does art have to play?
    “'You Will Not Play Wagner' Sparks Complicated Feelings About Acknowledging Art."  - JewishBoston.com Arts Fuse Feature: Favorite Stage Productions of 2021

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