From Ghetto to Cappella

From Ghetto to Cappella: Interfaith Exchanges in the Music of Baroque Italy

Most recently presented at Temple Emanu-El in partnership with the Carnegie Hall La Serenissima Festival, in Italy at the Teatro all'Antica di Sabbioneta and the Great Synagogue of Florence, we are honored to partner with historic Brotherhood Synagogue in presenting the fourth annual New York performance of From Ghetto to Cappella, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the creation of the Venetian Ghetto. 

While the Inquisition raged throughout Counter-Reformation Italy, the ghetto walls that separated Gentile from Jew were more porous than impenetrable. A lively dialogue between Jewish and Catholic musical cultures traversed the forbidding walls and enriched the music of both Synagogue and Sanctuary at a time of great oppression.

Works of Benedetto Marcello, Francesco Durante, Barbara Strozzi, Salomone Rossi, and unaccompanied Hebrew chants attest to a vibrant 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.

Jessica Gould, soprano & Elena Biscuola, mezzo-soprano; Loren Ludwig, viola da gamba; Charles Weaver, theorbo; Elliott Figg, harpsichord

Members of Brotherhood Synagogue, please call the synagogue office for your special discount code.