Regina: A Chamber Opera in One Act

Regina is a one-act opera based on the true story of Regina Jonas, the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the Jewish faith, in 1935. Jonas struggled to gain this recognition and subsequently perished in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. It was only in 1991 that another woman uncovered the papers that proved Jonas' legacy. This opera follows Regina, waiting to be uncovered in the piles of paper records locked away in East Berlin, and through vignettes of her past. This is paralleled with the story of Anna, who is desperately fighting against her Nazi father's legacy. Anna believes that, if she can uncover stories like Regina's, she will free herself of her father's torment. Regina is similarly haunted by her mother's ghost, whose discouraging words have shaped Regina's lifelong self-doubt. Both Regina and Anna need to be set free. This opera uses leitmotifs to differentiate the two main characters, but these themes are also often used as signifiers of the common struggles that both characters embody and represent. As well, they employ rhythmic and melodic styles that pervade both the vocal and instrumental parts throughout the opera, thus unifying the characters' goals. Because of the fact that the opera takes place in multiple time periods (sometimes simultaneously) the various choices of instrumentation and harmonic material often reflect these temporal shifts (for example, the accordion is often associated with Regina's path to ordination, her relationship with her rabbi, and a time of joy and calm before the war.) In addition, melodic and rhythmic motifs are used to represent specific as well as general events, such as the three-note 'ordination' theme and the two-chord repeated motif in the piano. The overall extended tonal style contributes to a largely lyrical setting of Maya Rabinovitch's libretto.DM