From Ghetto to Cappella at Temple Emanu El

While the Inquisition raged throughout Counter-Reformation Italy, the ghetto walls that separated Gentile from Jew were more porous than impenetrable. In commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the creation of the first Jewish Ghetto in Venice, we explore the cross-fertilization of Jewish and Catholic musical cultures that enriched the music of both synagogue and sanctuary.

 

Works of Benedetto Marcello, Francesco Durante, Barbara Strozzi, Salomone Rossi, and unaccompanied Hebrew chants attest to a lively conversation, as do selections from the 1759 Hebrew libretto of Handel's Esther, commissioned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam in the year of the composer's death.

 

This concert is co-presented with NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, the Skirball Center of Temple Emanu El, and in conjunction with the Carnegie Hall La Serenissima Festival.

 

Venice stands as a monument to the improbable paradise where city meets sea. The Venetian Republic—also known as La Serenissima, or “the Most Serene Republic”—reached levels of maritime supremacy, democratic progressiveness, financial prosperity, and both cultural achievement and innovation, flourishing for 1,000 years before its fall to Napoleon in 1797. Carnegie Hall salutes La Serenissima’s dazzling artistic legacy with concerts that feature vocal masterpieces and virtuoso instrumental music. The celebration also extends citywide with events at leading cultural institutions, including panel discussions, theatrical events, and art exhibitions that not only examine the rich culture of the Venetian Republic, but also the scandalous, ribald, and libertine history that the passage of time has rendered less familiar.

As a present-day holiday hub, Venice may be difficult to imagine in its early days as an unlikely refuge from hostile invaders in the midst of a series of islands surrounded by mudflats and marshes. With key ports and territories in and around the Eastern Mediterranean, Venice bridged East and West, linking the Byzantine and Ottoman empires and other civilizations with Europe. Combined, these cultures shaped Venice, infusing it with a vibrant cosmopolitanism that was further enhanced by its immense trade and commerce-driven wealth—all of which helped to establish its independence from the Papacy as a model of rule distinct from the rest of Europe’s feudal and monarchial structures.

La Serenissima Committee of Honor

Rinaldo Alessandrini
Italian Conductor, Keyboardist, and Director,
Concerto Italiano

Paolo Baratta
President, La Biennale di Venezia

Gabriella Belli
Director, Venice’s Civic Museums Foundation

Giancarla Berti
Advisory Director, Carnegie Hall Board of Trustees

Franca Coin
President, Venice International Foundation;
President, Friends of Venice, Inc.

Alberto Cribiore
Vice Chairman, Citi Institutional Clients
Group at Citigroup, Inc.

Claudio Del Vecchio
CEO, Brooks Brothers

Francesco Genuardi
Consul General of Italy in New York

Frederick Ilchman
Chair, Art of Europe, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; Chairman, Save Venice Inc.

Olivier Lexa
Founder and Artistic Director,
Venetian Centre for Baroque Music;
Stage Director

Andrea Marcon
Music Director, Venice Baroque Orchestra

The Honorable John R. Phillips
Ambassador of the United States
to the Italian Republic and the
Republic of San Marino

Joseph Plumeri
Vice Chairman, First Data
Board of Directors; Philanthropist

Nicòlo Foscari Widmann Rezzonico
Director, Credit Suisse Private Banking

Toto Bergamo Rossi
Director, Fondazione Venetian Heritage Onlus

Andrea Favaretto Rubelli
Co-CEO, Rubelli; President, Donghia

Jordi Savall
Early Music Instrumentalist and Conductor

Pierpaolo Seguso
Designer and Creative Director, Seguso

Carlo Traglio
Benefactor of Venetian Heritage
through Vhernier

His Excellency Armando Varricchio
Ambassador of Italy to the United States

 

Special Thanks

La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic is sponsored by Chubb.

The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism has granted La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic its official support (“Patrocinio”) in recognition of Carnegie Hall’s celebration of Italy’s extraordinarily rich cultural legacy.

Carnegie Hall gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism in Rome; the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC; and the Consulate General of Italy in New York.