At the beginning of this year, a dybbuk took possession of the Israeli Opera. For three weeks, the company’s outstanding new opera, based on the Jewish folk legend and set to Josef Bardanashvili’s captivating score, was performed entirely in Hebrew – until the spirit was exorcised, not by rabbis but by the Opera’s scheduling department. Since then, this singular Israeli work has been left without a new body to possess, and without an international audience to appreciate it.
