''Dybbuk'' is a

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

made by

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's fir ...

ballet master

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...

's eponymous music and taking S. Ansky's play '' The Dybbuk'' as a source. The premiere took place on 16 May 1974, at New York State Theater,

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

, with scenery by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, costumes by

Patricia Zipprodt Patricia Zipprodt (February 24, 1925 – July 17, 1999) was an American costume designer. She was known for her technique of painting fabrics and thoroughly researching a project's subject matter, especially when it was a period piece. During a ...

and lighting by

Jennifer Tipton Jennifer Tipton (born September 11, 1937) is an American lighting designer. She has designed for dance, theater, and opera. She is known for working on many productions of American Ballet Theatre. Life and career Tipton was born in Columbus, Ohi ...

. A revision of the choreography and the score was made later the same year; the ballet was renamed ''Dybbuk Variations'' and received its own premiere in November.

Premise

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

playwright S. Ansky’s ''The Dybbuk'' (1912–1919) centers around Khonnon and Leah, a young couple that has been promised for marriage to each other by their fathers before they were born. Before the wedding, Leah’s father breaks off the marriage with the penniless Khonnon, who dies instantly of a broken heart. However, Khonnon has his revenge when he enters Leah’s body in the form of an evil spirit called a dybbuk, which makes her act as though she is possessed. After rabbinical intervention, the likes of which Ansky had seen in exorcism-like ceremonies among the Hasidim when traveling through present day

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, Leah is forced to decide whether to marry the richer man or enter an unworldly union with the ghost of Khonnon. She chooses the latter to great dramatic effect at the fall of the curtain.

Composition

In ''Dybbuk'' Bernstein used a

Kabbalistic Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (). Jewi ...

tree to derive some of the melodic motives. By Kabbalistic tradition, each letter of the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

has its own numerical value. The name of the female lead in Dybbuk, Leah, is equal to the numerical value of thirty-six. Bernstein focused his composition on the divisions of thirty-six and eighteen (the numerical value of the Hebrew word chai (), meaning "life"), each multiples of the nine—the number of notes including the repetition of the top note in a symmetrical

octatonic scale An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the ancohemitonic symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), ...

. The result lent itself well to dodecaphonic composition but baffled critics, causing

Oliver Knussen Stuart Oliver Knussen (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation, his relatively few compositions are "rooted in 20th-cen ...

to write in ''

Tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...

'', "…it is surprising to encounter Bernstein making use of numerical formulas derived from the Kabbalah… and producing his most austerely contemporary-sounding score to date." Jack Gottlieb commented, "''The Dybbuk'' ballet (1974), however, marks a kind of departure for the composer since its concern with numerology results in far more hard-edged dissonant music (sometimes 12-tone) than in any of his other works."Jack Gottlieb, "About Leonard Bernstein", in Leonard Bernstein, Symphonies Nos. 1–3, with the

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ''ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisra'elit'') is a major Israeli symphony orchestra based in Tel Aviv. Its principal concert ...

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

2709 077, 1978, record.

Original cast

* Patricia McBride * Tracey Bennett * Helgi Tomasson * Bart Cook * Victor Castelli * Hermes Conde

Footnotes

References

* ''

Playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for Audience, theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the ...

'', NYCB, Thursday, May 1, 2008 * ''Repertory Week'', NYCB, Spring Season, 2008 repertory, week 1

Reviews

NY Times

Clive Barnes Clive Alexander Barnes (13 May 1927 – 19 November 2008) was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for ''The New York Times'', and, from 1978 until his death, the ''New York Post''. Barnes had sign ...

, May 17, 1974
NY Times

, June 11, 1974
NY Times

, December 1, 1974

Articles

NY Times

, May 26, 1974
NY Times, Richard F. Shepard, May 9, 1974

Anna Kisselgoff, May 12, 1974
NY Times
Deborah Jowitt, December 8, 1974 {{Leonard Bernstein Ballets by Jerome Robbins Ballets by Leonard Bernstein 1974 ballets Ballets designed by Rouben Ter-Arutunian Ballets designed by Jennifer Tipton New York City Ballet repertory