Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Sephardi Sea Hawks
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom — and Revenge By Edward Kritzler Doubleday, 336 pages, $26. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Manischewitz! The jokes had better be disposed of immediately, since the very…
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Culture Baring Body and Soul, Again, on Broadway
The new Broadway production of “Equus,” which opened officially September 25, revives a 1973 play that was originally seen as an attack on psychiatry. Written by Sir Peter Levin Shaffer, who was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, England, in 1926, the play reflected an earlier generation’s rejection of Freudianism. The book “The Myth…
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Culture Healing Hands on a Keyboard
The classical music world is feting pianist Leon Fleisher with a yearlong celebration of his 80th birthday, featuring a much applauded series of concerts across America. The latest performances, at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on October 2, in Boston on October 3 and in Baltimore on October 5, are titled Leon Fleisher & Friends…
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Culture A Forgotten Conductor’s Triumphant Return
Sometimes, historic recordings are more than just opportunities to hear great forgotten performances. The just completed 43-volume “Karel Ancerl Gold Edition” of CDs from Supraphon (www.supraphon.com; distributed in the United States by www.qualiton.com) conducted by the Czech maestro Karel Ancerl is a case in point. The new DVD — “Who Is Karel Ancerl?” — also…
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Culture Monumental Epic ‘Soldiers’ Into N.Y.: ‘Die Soldaten’ To Be Staged at Armory
This summer, from July 5 to July 12, the Festival at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will present a massive production of the strident, atonal German opera “Die Soldaten” (“The Soldiers”) by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970). This work, composed from 1957 to 1964, is so vast that it will be performed in Manhattan’s Park…
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