New York City
Downtown Music Productions presents The Satin Cloak, a chamber opera with music and libretto by Martin Halpern, a modern fable based on a Hasidic tale. The show is a modern re-telling of a parable by the 18th Century Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. The story dramatizes the development, over seven years, of its four principal characters: the humble cobbler Tameem, his devoted wife Akara, their worldly friend Aruhm, and a Messenger sent by the mysterious Sovereign of the land to appoint Tameem governor of his province. Like the original parable, the opera explores timelss questions about the relation between the human and the divine, but in a way that clearly reflects contemporary moral and philosophical thought.