Baruchs Schweigen (Baruch's Silence)

A chamber opera (for 8 singers and a chamber ensemble of 17 players) by Ella Milch-Sheriff
Libretto: Yael Ronen

Orchestration

Flute
Oboe/English Horn
Bass Clarinet/Clarinet
Bassoon
French Horn
Trumpet
Trombone
Percussion and Timpani
Keyboard
String Quintet

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Program Notes

Baruchs Schweigen (Baruch's Silence) - A chamber opera by Ella Milch-Sheriff

I was thirteen years old when I came home one day from school earlier than usual and found this strange book which I have never seen before. In that book I read for the first time that my father had a wife and a 3 years old son, both killed in the Holocaust.
Holocaust...Holocaust...I hated this word.
It symbolized for me everything I did not want to deal with. I was born in Israel and wanted to establish my  identity as  Israeli without hearing those languages that my parents brought from "there". The Polish and the Yiddish. It took me years, many years to be able to confront with my family story. My reaction resembles many other Israelis, second generation to survivors.

My father, Baruch Milch, a doctor, gynecologist, decided to write his memories in his last years and made my sister and me swear to him that we make a book out of it. "One more book about the holocaust", we thought. "Who will be interested to read his memories?" But he was stubborn and so I read in details the terrible and unbelievable life stories of my father and my mother. Shortly after my father died my mother got a phone call from a Polish woman. She is a journalist. They found my father's diary in the Jewish historical archive in Warsaw. They read it and it's one of the most interesting documents they have ever read about the holocaust. They ask permission to publish parts of it in their paper. And so we learnt for the first time that there is an original diary which my father wrote in a hiding place after all his family was killed and never mentioned to us its existence.

A few years after my father's diary was published as a book ("Can heaven be Void", Yad-Vashem publications), I composed the work "Ist der Himmel leer?" based on it. As my true language is the music, this was actually the first time I really went deep into the destiny of my father and started to understand some of the questions that were never asked. To one of the performances in Germany of this piece came Jens Neundorf, the opera director. There, as he told me years after, was the first time he had the idea that this story could be an opera. Meanwhile the book "Ein Lied fuer meinen Vater" written by Ingeborg Prior and me, based on my story as a daughter to survivors together with parts of my father's diary was published in Germany (Aufbau Verlag, 2008).

When I was asked by Staatstheater Braunschweig to compose this opera it was clear that the main issue of the opera should be the daughter, her life in a house full of secrets and silence with parents who were afraid to show emotions and how she discovers the real story behind them.

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I approached the young Israeli stage director and play-writer, Yael Ronen and asked her if she can write the libretto. Yael based her libretto on my father's diary and on stories I told her and that were written by my late sister. She took complete freedom dealing with the real facts and characters. The daughter in the opera is a combination of me and my sister but also an imaginary daughter who deals with her life and the facts which are being discovered to her. The story of the father and the mother is based on the true story but is not identical and so are the other stories told in the opera.
This enabled me to have the needed distance to compose the music. I had a very intimate acquaintance with the main characters of the opera on one hand but on the other hand I could also look at them from a far and could treat them in an artistic way.
The libretto was written in Hebrew and it was extremely important for me that the German translation will be as powerful and poetic as the original Hebrew. It was the first time I composed an opera to the German language which I speak fluently. I think that the language had a huge influence on the style of my music in this opera and for me it was a fascinating and important challenge.

I had to find the right musical way dealing with such a powerful and emotional text without falling into sentimentality. There are a lot of ironic spots and personal musical memories inside this opera.  Some of them can be recognized even in Germany, some of them are very "Israeli" and Jewish and some are really very personal. I used songs that were sung to me by my parents but twisted them to a March, to a tango-habanera etc.,  which turned their original meaning altogether. When I needed a lullaby, I decided to take a very known Yiddish song "Unter deine weisse Steren". It is the first time in my life to use the Yiddish language but somehow I fell in love with this beautiful song written by the poet Avraham Sutzkuver and composed by Avraham brodno who was murdered in 1943.

The opera has 10 scenes. The first scene is the longest of them all. We get to know the daughter, father and mother but also the ghosts who accompany them all the time. The ghosts sing to the daughter the 10 commandments. These 10 commandments were written by my father in his original diary after he lost everything which was dear to him. These are the principe of life according to which he educated his daughters. It is extremely difficult nowadays to believe that a person can come to such hard conclusions.

The ghosts are not making it easy for the daughter. The daughter is curious, energetic, full of anger and wish to understand. The father is desperate, like a dead person. The mother tries so hard to be a comforting mother but cannot. All these I tried to bring out in my music characterizing each personality in his or her own way. Also the ghosts have their own musical face or style. They are not negative ghosts, they are good but honest and sharp. They help to tell the story and understand.
In the opera there are 3 different roles of a child. First we see the father's son as a ghost. Then we see the son himself. At the end we see the son of the brother. This was another challenge to have a child participate in such a shocking story. Musically I tried to make a continuation of the 3 roles although each of them has also its own characteristics.

During the compositional process, I met many times with Ido Ricklin, the stage director. Through his perception as a man of the theatre, I went even deeper into each character and every situation on stage. He forced me to explain, to analyze while still in the process of composing. He did not make it easier for me, on the contrary, but I thank him so much for being on my side giving me an honest, deep going and kind feedback.

It might happen to a composer once in a life time that  she sits in rehearsals far away from home looking at the singers who are reflections of herself, her father, her mother, her sister...
I am experiencing here in Braunschweig a very rare experience which is sometimes not easy at all but very rewarding.
We are trying to tell a personal story in sounds, in acting, in pictures on stage and we are doing a mutual work which makes me believe again in the human being and in a better future. We are here an Israeli team, Ido Ricklin the stage director, Neta Haker, the designer and me working together in full cooperation with so many people in the theatre which help things happen and especially the wonderful singers and Mr. Bauche, our conductor whom I thank so much for his patience and understanding.
I would like to thank my dear friend Guenther Beelitz for convincing me to take upon myself this impossible challenge of making an opera out of my personal life story and for helping all of us realizing this idea. I thank Ingeborg Prior who had the idea, years ago, to make a book out of my story when I did not even think that the 2nd generation is of any interest to anybody here in Germany and of course to Aufbau Verlag which published it. I thank my friend Vera Giese for helping me make the final version of the text in German translated from the Hebrew by Avishai Milstein and I thank the Braunschweig Staatstheater and the Intendant Mr. Gropper and its director Mr. Neundorf for having the trust in me and giving me the opportunity to create this opera.

I dedicate this opera to my father, Baruch Milch, my mother Lusia Milch and My sister Shosh Avigal.

Ella Milch-Sheriff

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Synopsis

Baruch's Silence - Synopsis of each scene:

Scene 1: A daughter in Israel returns to her parent's house after they are gone. The memories starts to come back to her and the "ghosts" of the house are awakened. The father's "10 commandments" provoke and torture her. Among the ghosts is a child. She does not know who he is. An imaginary talk between the daughter and her parents raises questions which were never been asked before. The ghosts remind the daughter of her fears and longings. She demands explanations from her father. Then she finds her father's diary and his will which he wanted her to find after his death.

Scene 2: The daughter learns from the diary that her father had a family with wife and son in Poland, in 2nd World war. It is too hard for her to accept this reality and the brother that she has never known about his existence before.

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Scene 3: "On Friday, 1st September, began the end of my real life".
The diary tells about the father's life as a doctor in the war and about the mothers who asked him for a medicine which will enable their children to fall in an everlasting sleep. She remembers how she liked to be ill and needed the help of her father as a doctor. Only then she felt being loved. She understands that her murdered brother won the everlasting love of her father.

Scene 4: During the war, the father and his family were running away. The daughter gets a real impression of her father's unknown life and his relationship with his son.

Scene 5:During their escape the child was exhausted and could not go on running. The family convinces the father to go with his brother to find a safe hiding place for them all. Whole his absence, his whole family is murdered. The father cannot forgive himself to have left his family behind and therefore to survive by himself.

Scene 6: After the father leaves his family, he, together with his brother, is looking for a hiding place out of the city. They hear sounds of explosions and shooting which makes them go back to find that everything is erased and destroyed. When they lose hope to find any family members, they find suddenly the brother's son who managed to survive out of the whole family.

Scene 7: The father's diary tells about the first meeting with the mother and what it meant for each one of them. The daughter becomes aware that the mother also has some terrible story behind her which she has never spoken about.

Scene 8: The mother and her mother lost everything they had during the war. Right after the war, on their way, they meet a Russian officer who seems to want to help them but all he really wants is the young beautiful girl. The grandmother cannot prevent this rape. The daughter blames her parents for not having told her about their past. She asks herself why her father could never find consolation in is new life. He, in her mid, did not make any sin.

Scene9: After the loss of his family the father wants revenge and to die. His brother prevents him from doing so. They find a hiding place by Ukrainian farmers and they pay him everything they have. The farmer does not accept the brother's son. He claims that the child might endanger them. The two men try to convince the farmers that the child will be quiet and behave well. The child wants permanently to go out of the pit and play with the farmer's children whose singing he hears all the time. At one point, after a few weeks in the darkness, he succeeds to go out of the pit and his father, while trying to calm him down, strangles him. The daughter's father is a silent witness to this and therefore he feels himself guilty for the rest of his life.

Scene 10: The father's diary and its content made the daughter's attitude towards her father change. Now she can understand and forgive.

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Libretto

Baruchs Schweigen
By Ella Milch-Sheriff
Libretto: Yael Ronen

The characters:
Father: bass-Baritone
Mother: Soprano
Daughter: Mezzo-Soprano
Brother/Ghost: Tenor
Grandmother/Ghost/Mrs. B.: Soprano
Ist Wife/Ghost/Daughter B.: Soprano
Ukrainian Farmer/Russian officer/Ghost: Bass
Child/ghost child, brother's son: child soprano

1st Scene
(Daughter enters the stage. Complete silence, only the sound of a wall clock is heard. Daughter walks through furniture all covered with white sheets. She uncovers the clock.)

Daughter:
“Can you hear it?
The music of my childhood.”
(She closes her eyes, listens to the clock and conducts an imaginary symphony)
“Inside the dreadful silent sea
One sound, rhythmic and faithful
Like a promise for better things to come.”

(Father and mother enter from both sides of the stage slowly, take off the sheets from the chairs near the dining table and sit down).

“Or like a ticking bomb.”

(She sits down  between her parents. They eat in silence. The “Ghosts” enter the room one after the other. They are the family members of father and mother.
They stand and watch in silence. One hears only the rhythmic sound of the clock and the plates)

The Ghosts sing one after the other. In the background one hears the clock ticking.  They whisper into the ears of father and mother in two groups.

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All the ghosts: “You shalt have no other god save thyself.”

(The daughter observes the ghosts, father and mother ignore them).

Ghosts: “Do only that which serves thyself and do not sacrifice thyself for another.”
“Live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment.”
“Love thyself above all.”
“Do not do unto others that which pleases you.”   
“Do not uselessly burden thy mind.”
“Harden thy heart and listen not to it.”
“Do not get close to others and do not allow others to get close
to thee.”
“Do not rely on anybody.”

Child: “Do not believe-
Ghosts: Heaven is void.
Child:   Do not pray –
Ghosts: Heaven is void.
Child:  Do not hope –
Ghosts: Heaven is void.
Child   Nobody listens –
Ghosts: Heaven is void
Daughter: Enough! Enough! Silence!

(The child sits on his father’s knees and continues singing with the ghosts).

Ghosts+ Child: “Do not believe- heaven is void.
Do not pray – heaven is void.
Do not hope – heaven is void.
Nobody listens – heaven is void. Heaven is void.”

Daughter (to father):
“How is it possible?
Are the blue skies empty?
Are those clear nights full of stars indifferent?
Clouds, sun, moon, have they no meaning?
How is it possible?”

Father (to daughter):
“Heaven are unconcerned.
Nobody listens
The world is still,
Death itself, only he has a voice
Concrete and determined.
No point to rebel, to yell or to outcry.
There is nothing there. It’s just you,
And the clock ticking.”

Daughter (to father):
“The dead, only they hear the silence
The dead, only they make no noise.
I am still alive!
Look at me
Listen to me
Ask how I am
Tell me I am taller
That I sing so nice.
Ask me if I cried
Kiss and say: we can
Say that there is a reason to wait for
That one can also smile
Say anything
Just break this silence!

Mother:
Leave alone, just leave alone, child. He who cannot, cannot.
Not every memory becomes a story
and not every story can be reduce to words
and not every word finds itself a language
and the language sometimes does not find the sound.
Leave alone child, just leave.
He who cannot, cannot.

Daughter:
And you know everything but would not tell
His secret keeper, you are.
And me you want transparent and silent.
And I want a mother
Like other mothers.
no hug and no kiss
it burns out your lips
it burns your hands therefore you do not touch.
You want to love
But you do not remember how
So you feed me and feed
This is your way of giving.

Mother:
“You are…bad.
Bad girl, not obedient.
You are noisy at rest times.
You play and bang on the piano.
You, spoiled weeper.
How could you have such black hair like a raven?

Father:
You would have never survived that hell.

Father & mother:
Can you really imagine what pain is?

Daughter:
(She pinches herself) It did not hurt
(she beats herself) It did not hurt
It does not hurt

Father & mother
You don’t understand.

Daughter:
“It’s not as if I didn’t want to understand. I could not.
I knew there is a black monster there, in their past
I didn’t know much about it.
I knew your volcanic anger, father.
Your  apathy, Mother.
Your skin belt, Father.
Your sleepless nights, Mother.
This house with no joy.
Father and mother, different from all others.
The Restrained anger, the outburst cry,
But I didn't know why! Why!

Mother:
He who cannot, cannot.

Daughter:
And you cannot…
No lullaby and no fairy tale
just dark stories before going to sleep
about frozen forests,
about one barefooted girl…

Mother:
in a thin night-dress in an autumn evening…
Lying on a bed of corn field
drinking the morning dew
running away transparent as the wind
Away from the dog's teeth and from evil eyes
And no fairy in the field will appear
to save this girl…
Daughter&mother:
no prince and no magic.
you haven't promised me
any comfort at the end of the story.

Mother:
He who cannot, cannot.

Daughter:
With me nobody can.
Not father, nor mother.
With them he can.
At nights in a strange language
father's dead spirits, their names are not mentioned
but they are always besides him
humming in my ears along his silence.

Who is this mysterious monster, it's name one should not utter
and one should not ask about.
That one that because of it everything had happened.
That because of it so much is forbidden,
that because of it mother cannot be a mother
and father is not able.
One day she loves, the other she hates,
That because of it father is silent and I must not ask.
Because with her he talks, never with me.
And in the black nights he speaks only with her out of sleep
in a strange foreign language, yells, shouts and curses
and begs.
And in the morning he is silent and does not remember.
But I remember and do not understand.
What did you say at night father,
What did you say ,
Tell me also.

(She collapses on the table)

2nd Scene

(The child comes closer to her with astonishment, runs back to father and takes out from father’s pocket a letter.)

Child + Father: (read the letter):
“To my only daughter. - To open after I am gone.
(Daughter raises her head up, tries to take the letter but the child avoids her.)

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Child+ Father (continue):
“If you read those lines now, it means that you have separated today from my body.
I hope you have made for me the funeral I have asked for.
Exactly as I have asked for.
On the gravestone that you make for me please write:
To the memory of my parents Roza and Zelig Milch
To the memory of all my family who was murdered in the Shoa
To the memory of my beloved wife that was buried alive by the Nazis
To the memory of my only son Eliash-Lunek that was murdered and he is so young.
God bless his soul.”

Daughter: “My wife? My son? What is he talking about?
He was already old  and delirious.
I had no brother.
I knew everything  one can possibly know about him.”

Child: “You did not know about me.
I existed. Look, here I am.”

Daughter: You are a dream of a dead man.
You are an illusion,
Longing for a lost world.
No part of my flesh nor his flesh.
You are not and you have not been.
You have no name, no picture
No date written on a stone.
I am his only daughter.
The only one.
So he told me.

Child: And I am his son
His only son
That he loved.
The image of my face lies in his brain
He whispers my name in his sleep
My dying day lies within his heart.
I was, I have been,
I am.

(Daughter takes the letter from him)
Daughter: (reads) “On Friday, September first my real life ended.”
(father joins her while she reads. She reads again, he joins her louder)

3rd Scene
(Daughter takes the letter from him)
Daughter: (reads)
“On Friday, September first my real life ended.”

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Father:
“On Friday, September 1st my real life ended.”
(The ghosts chorus enters and accompanies father in the first monologue)

Father and ghosts:
You are a doctor she told me right after we married
but for them you are the disease.

Daughter: Hold on! Who said so? Who is the woman who said so?
Is it you, mother?

Child: It is my mother, not yours.

Daughter: (To mother) There was another one before you?

Mother: There were different life.

Father:
Right after we married she told me

1st wife:
You are a doctor
but for them you are the disease.

Father:
And then we already knew:
We are the problem and we are the final solution.
Here it is!
The smell of the next action is already in the air,
carried on the sound waves of the mourners women.
Those who lost and those who have not yet lost
nock on my door and ask

Women Ghosts:
Master doctor, Mister doctor
give death in a bottle
let the children have a long and sweet slumber.
Cure them from the burden of life
give sleep, give a peel of proper rest.

Father:
Our town, a city of sad spirits
In the streets the blood dries out
The living are scrawling from the halls and the cracks
lonely, overwhelmed with sorrow and insanity
stammering their disaster.

Women Ghosts:
Master doctor, Mister doctor
give death in a bottle
let the children have a long and sweet slumber.
Cure them from the burden of life
give sleep, give a peel of proper rest.

Daughter:
How much I loved being sick.
How much tenderness came out of you as the doctor.
Do you remember how they came sometimes
in the middle of the night, strangers, and my father,
I am not aloud to wake him up because…

Mother:
Father's sleep is fragile,
father does not take noises…

daughter:
He used to jump happily to the noise of people coming.
how I loved watching those hands that hit me at times
cover softly a fevered baby.
How much I loved being sick.

Child:
I was born sick with an incurable disease
A Jewish boy, black hair and eyes, circumcised.

Ghosts:
you are the disease

Father said that nowadays it's a terminal disease.
And I was doomed to an everlasting love…

4th Scene
(a running away scene)

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Ghosts Chorus: The destiny of the Jewish children will be the worse of all.
The murderers do not shoot them,
they are thrown to the graves while still alive.

Father: I will not let it happen!
I find the escape route
Take my son and wife
We run

1st Wife: from place to place.

Father: At nights to the villages,

1st Wife: In the days we return.

Father: My child does not sleep
a child, beautiful and clever, trained he runs at night.
We move from place to place.

1st Wife: It is forbidden to stay in one place.

Father: Small feet,
big eyes full of questions
I must not look back.

Ghosts: Action! Action!

Father: We run, we run

1st Wife: To the forest, to the field.

Ghosts: Run! Run!

Father: Like drugged cockroaches.

Ghosts: Run! Run!

Father: Through fences, through water canals.

Ghosts: Run! Run!

Father: In mud, in the fields.

Ghosts: Run! Run!

Father: As fast as we can.

Ghosts: Run! Run!

Father:
My wife, she lost so much weight…(he stops running)

Ghosts: Run! Run!

1st wife: And the child…he is sick.

Ghosts: Do not stop. Run!

1st wife: No! We Cannot go on! He needs a bed.
(sings him a lullaby in Yiddish)
Unter deine weisse Steren
Streckt zu dir mein weisse Hand.
Meine Werter seien treren,
Wilen ruhen in dein Hand.
Seh, es tunkelt seier Finkel
In mein kelerdiken Blick,
Un ich hob garnit kein Winkel
Sei zu shenken dir zurick.
Un ich hob garnit kein Winkel
Sei zu shenken dir zurick.
(The Ghosts gaze at him desperately and leave him)

Father to Daughter: Look at him!
A clever and beautiful child,
behaves exemplary, whispers gently,
learned not to ask questions,
small feet
big eyes.

Daughter:
A handsome and clever child?

Father:
My son.

Daughter:
Not like me.

father:
Does not ask questions.

Daughter:
Not like me.

father:
Obedient and silent.

Daughter:
I am rebellious and angry.

Father:
Eats like a bird.

Daughter:
I always want more and more.

Father:
My son that I loved, loved with all my heart and soul.

Daughter:
And me?
Did you love me too? Father?

5th Scene
Child: Good night father. Good night mother.

(1st Wife sings a lullaby)

Father: If I had known…

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Child+1st Wife + Ghosts:
That it is a night with no dawn
endless and dark
no sun will shine.

Father: No place is safe anymore.
I had to go out and find a hiding place.
I left them just for one night.
Just one night.
And that night.
That night…

1st wife+Ghosts: You could not have known.

Father: If I would have stayed there with you,
Even if we were doomed to die together.
If I had only lied there awakened besides you
Burning your sleeping faces in my memory.
If I had only stayed there to memorize your faces,
every sign, every wrinkle.

1st wife: I was the one to say
Go! Go with your brother,
this night is a safe night.
Go with your brother and find a hiding place
for the nights to come.

Father: And I went…
I went and left them behind.

6th Scene

Brother: Are you coming? Come.

Father: Let's go.

Brother: The road is open.

Father: What a black night.

Brother: It is so silent.

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Father: …The silence is shattering,

Brother: Did you hear this? Listen!

Father: It’s the echo of the silence.

Brother: No, listen…like a rolling thunder.
It's coming towards us.;

Father: What is it? Sounds of gunshots explosions.

Brother: It's coming from the city. We have been betrayed!
My wife! My son!

Father: My wife! My son! They are there all alone.
If I had known…
 (Silence, they stop, standing overwhelmed, motionless in front of the city)

Father: What a silence.

Brother: Sounds of chocked crying and pain screams.

Father+Brother: The stabbed, the tortured, the burned, the shots.

Chorus of the dead:
The morning rises but it has no color
Death cloud covers the city.
Blood streams in the streets
And we mourn our dead
Their lives, their destiny.

Father: Who is it?
Here comes a child…
This is…my son!

Brother: A child…My son!
He lives! He lives! My son lives!
(to the child) My love, tell me where is your mother.

Father: And my wife? And my son?

Brother: Where is everybody? What has happened?

Father: And my wife? And my son? Talk to me. Say something! Say something…

7th Scene

Daughter: Lost? All of them?
Just like that in one night?
How? What has happened?
Tell me, tell…

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Father: And yet, after I knew my life came to their end
After I did not hope anymore to smile,
I met you.

Chorus: A doctor, young and handsome,
tormented eyes.
and the days, the days that after the days.

Father & Mother: Lost and tormented we wished to die
Until you appeared like an angel.

Father: She took this broken person in
and mended my life.
She revived my soul.

Mother: He seeded in me seeds of belief
In a future and in human spirit.
He carried me in his exhausted hands
And licked my wounds.

Father & Mother:
In the name of love we swore
To carry our burden together.
and the days, the days that after the days.

Daughter: And you knew? Did you know all that?
A lover who was lost and a child?

Who are you, a wife but no mother,
That wants but cannot,
One day loves, the other hates.
Kicks with sudden anger
Then prays for forgiveness like a little girl.
Who are you? A woman that did not make it to be my mother
Sometimes laughs, sometimes weeps.
What are you crying about, mother?

8th Scene

Grandmother: (to mother)
What are you crying about?

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Mother:
Mother?

Grandmother:
The war is over and we survived.
Dry the tears and raise your head,
you are alive, still alive. Do not yell.
Around you there is but death and destruction.
You still stand, you are blessed.
Smile and bless God.

Russian officer:
The war is over and we survived.

Mother:
The war is over and we survived.
just me and mother
in an empty world.

Grandmother:
We are wandering…

Mother:
Without knowing where and which is home.

Russian officer:
The war is over and we survived.
And the way home, on the parting-way
a barefooted girl in a thin night dress
So graceful, so beautiful…

Are you heading eastwards?

Grandmother: Wherever you go.

Mother: To Proskurov, three days ride.

Russian officer:
For you, you fair one, till the end of the world.
Come up.

Mother: And mother?

Russian officer: The old woman sits in the back.
And you, princess, you sit next to me.

(Officer hums love songs, grandmother joins him).

Mother: (Stops them)
And then – the third night,
the jeep stopped.

Officer:
Just for one night, tomorrow we'll continue our way…

Mother:
And mother gave me to him

Grandmother:
As there is a price to everything.

Mother:
arm-in-arm
Like a cursed bride
walking arm-in-arm
to the officer's lodgings canopy.

Grandmother:
There is a price to everything.

(the officer takes her along the stage like in a wedding, goes out and disappears and she stays alone. Daughter and grandmother  are listening).

Mother:
And that morning which was after that night
that will not be mentioned anymore,
at the end of that war
I came to you mother and asked to die.

Grandmother:
You foolish girl! Stupid! What are you crying about!
The war is over and we survived.
Dry the tears and raise your head,
you are alive, still alive. Do not yell.
Around you there is but death and destruction.
you still stand, you are blessed.
Smile and bless God.

Daughter: (to father) You knew?
Did you know about that night,
that morning, that which should not be mentioned?

Father and grandmother:
Leave alone, just leave alone, child.
Not every memory becomes a story
and not every story can be reduce to words
not every word finds itself a language
and the language sometimes does not find the sound.
Leave alone child, just leave.
He who cannot, cannot.

Daughter:
But you were there two of you against me
interwoven silence in silence
secret in secret.
Bound to each other
understanding without a word,
and a wall against me.
You have created a home in which only the past reigns.
You wake up your wounds and reject the laughter
and the  comfort in the future.
Why can't you find no comfort?

You have done no wrong, Papa.
You did what you could.
Everything else was done to you.
You have no guilt.

9th Scene
Father:
Revenge!
What has been left?

Click to view large

Revenge! Just revenge!
The day of atonement will come
From my own hands it will come, not from heaven
I know now
The heavens are empty
No other judge but me.
Alone in this world I live.
What for?
Why me?
Why have I been left alone in the world.
Why has been left but revenge.

Brother: Come, there, a hiding place,
Not far from the valley
A house in the middle of corn field
Mr. B., Ukrainian, logical, thrifty and brave.

Mr. B.: Courage has a price.

Brother: Of course, this is clear. We pay.

B.: Cash and in advance.

Father+brother: Whatever is necessary.

B.: And property?

Brother:
What we have.

B.: And the child?

Daughter: What is with the child?

Brother: What is with the child?

Father: What is with the child?

B.: He will turn all of us in. He will bring disaster upon us all.

Daughter: But he is just a child.

Girl B.: sings

B.: The child…he is not in the contract.

Brother: He is trained and silent, stay with me here in the dark.

B+ wife B.: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us.

Girl B.:  sings

Father: He is obedient and silent.

Wife B.: He will turn us all in.

B.: If I only hear a twittering…

Father+Brother: You won't hear!

B.: Cry or laughter-

Girl B.: sings

Brother: You will not hear anything.
I swear in my life, in his life.

B.: A Swear in a Jew's life…(laughs) it's better to keep silent.
(he leaves)

Girl B.: sings Ukrainian children's song

Father:
The soil is wet.

Brother: The cold is getting into our bones.

Child: But I, I am silent like a mouse.

Girl B. sings

Child: Outside I hear voices of children.

Father: Inside there is silence.

Child: But look at me, silent as a mouse.

B.+wife: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us.

Girl B. sings

Child: And I, look at me, silent as a mouse.

B. + wife: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us.

Girl B. sings

Child: Outside there are voices of children singing.

Brother:
And my son cannot speak, cannot cry…

B.: The child is restless, it's dangerous.

Father: B wants more money.

Brother:
We gave all we had. We'll find more if needed.

B.:  I need complete silence here!
Do something with the child.

Child: But me...I am silent as a mouse.

B.: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us

Girl B. sings

Father: The child is restless.

Brother: Out side there are children singing.

Child:
And I am not aloud…
Outside the children's voices playing in the sun.

B.+wife: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us

Child: I cannot be silent anymore. I want to sing too!

Brother: I am afraid.
My son's silence
Like a ticking bomb.

Child:
I want to go out!
I cannot be silent anymore!

(They go upstairs)

Brother: Remember! Silent as a mouse!

(The child sings and laughs)

Child: Father…Father…
Do you still love me, father? Still love me?

Father: It is impossible to calm him down.

Brother: I told you: Silence!

B.+Wife: He will turn us all in. He will bring disaster upon us.

Child: Love me? Love?

Brother: It's impossible.
Silence!

Child:
Love me? Love?..... Love?....

Father: In front of my eyes
You grasp in your hands,
The good hands of a father…
Your son,
Your only son
That you loved,
Shutting his strangled cries
And I ,stand in front of you
Frozen like a pillar of salt.

Brother:
Shall I let go?

Daughter: Yes!

Father: But I did said nothing.
I could not.

Brother: Shall I let go?

Daughter: Yes! Let go!

Father:  My tongue has been paralyzed.
My thoughts were stoned.

Brother: Speak! Shall I let go?

Daughter: Save him, you are a doctor! You must save the child!

Father: But I did nothing.
I was silent.
A pillar of salt, frozen and dumb.

Daughter: Let go! Let go! Speak up! Speak!

(Father is silent, the child dies).

10th Scene

Click to view large

Father: And so,
At that moment,
I had ceased to be as all humankind.

Ghosts (in the background):
“Do not believe-
Do not pray – heaven is void.
Do not hope – heaven is void.
Nobody listens – heaven is void. Heaven is void.”

Daughter:
On that day father ceased to be a human- being.
I grew up in a house of a dead man.
Strong and wise, but dead.
He forbade me to cry
Any emotion was a sign of weakness
Because only the strong ones survive.
He prayed for a son
To replace the one he lost,
Instead of the one that his death he did not prevent
He got me.
Because heaven is void
And nobody listens.
How could I know, father?
How could I understand?
How could I forgive?

Ghosts:
Yitgadal veyitkadash shmei Raba.

Daughter:
I kept my promise.
I am telling your story, father.
This is my real farewell.
Now I learn to forgive, to miss you.
You may finally rest.
Yitgadal veyitkadash shmei Raba.

» Top

Press

What awaits the audience is first and foremost a work that grips you by the throat, as well as being a most personal piece… a work whose lack of sentimentality inspires amazement. … The effect is so forceful that it cannot be recommended to youth under the age of 16.

Die Welt, By Willi Kramer, 26/2/10

At the premiere performance of the opera Baruch's Silence it was at once clear that here is a successful work with a sure future. Milch-Sheriff's tonal language is very plastic… The text, which many contemporary composers often present as an irrelevant recitative, is with her woven into an original and melodic compositional style so that the work is made attractive for the singers … Similarly, the role of the chamber orchestra is blessed by the many solo passages that are colorful and richly varied. In the opera world, new works generally have a short lifespan that does not extend beyond their first production. Baruch's Silence on the other hand, will probably soon have additional productions in other opera houses.

Hannover Allgemeine Zeitung, By Stefan Arndt, 4/3/10

An unsettling premiere of the opera by Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff at the Braunschweig Opera... A tension-filled drama, like one by Ibsen… … There was a continual and sub-conscious tension throughout the work, arising from tiny thematic motes moving among the instruments ... a lyrical and unified musical picture … lengthy applause for an unsettling premiere.

Die Deutsche Buehne, 4/10 Braunschweiger Zeitung, By Andreas Berger, 27/2/10

... A sometimes breath-stopping intensity that has the audience on the edge of its seats throughout. This is a tense and thrilling opera. The singers' and the orchestra's enthusiasm and involvement were obvious. The Braunschweig audience responded with an extraordinarily lengthy ovation.

NDR Kultur, By Hans Stallmach, 26/2/10

... Ella Milch Sheriff has created a convincing psychodrama … Her tonal musical language is sometimes turbulent-dramatic, sometimes chamber, sometimes totally lyrical... The thunderous applause at the premiere must be mentioned.

Opernetz: Germany's opera world magazine, By Christian Shuette, 28/2/10

Ella Milch-Sheriff's music is opera music above all, done with a sure hand and with a delicate weave of text and tone… The singers' melodic lines are composed of long strands as an aria-like Parlando with the ensemble and the orchestra delicately accompanying. Yet there are powerful passages that create contrast and increase the effect ... The musical material develops and grows into a focused and unified work with musical memories...

Deutschland Musikjournal, By Irene Constantin, 1/3/10

... A celebration of opera... Pearls of childhood sounds, as well as the sounds of a ticking clock in the hall, and then we're all at once tortured victims. The spectators have to follow every turn of this story, and identify with it completely. None in the ensemble could distance themselves from the story. They acted as though their senses were drunk: contained yet crammed full, demanding and full of emotion...

Neue Braunschweiger, By Ingeborg Obi-Preiss, 28/2/10