This month we present the final performance of our 50th season. It is something a little different and a little special.
In 1922, Manfred Noa, a 27-year-old German-Jewish director, created a silent film based on Gotthold Lessing’s 1779 play Nathan the Wise. The play, set in Jerusalem during the Crusades, features the wise Jewish merchant Nathan, the enlightened sultan Saladin, and a mysterious Knight Templar. I don’t want to give away any of the film’s suspenseful plot twists, but its main thrust is a heart-felt call for religious tolerance.
The church banned the play’s performance during Lessing’s lifetime. The Nazis banned Noa’s film and destroyed all known copies of the film and it’s musical score. In 1996, a copy of the film was unearthed in a Moscow archive; it had been filed with the title “The Storming of Jerusalem”. In 2006, the film was restored and tinted. The Goethe Institute commissioned Boston composer Aaron Trant to create a new musical score. On September 11, 2011, the restored film and its new music were given a premiere at the Coolidge Corner Theater; the music was played by Trant and his ensemble The After Trio.
I am very happy that Aaron Trant and his trio have agreed to come to Wayland with the film to recreate that 2011 premiere. I hope you will be able to join us.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
7:00 pm
Free. All are welcome.
Main Stage at Wayland High School
164 Old Connecticut Path
Handicapped accessible
