Elijah's Violin

An opera by Meira Warshauer

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About Elijah’s Violin

Elijah’s Violin has been performed in San Francisco and North Carolina in semi-staged and workshop productions. The opera is available for a fully staged world premiere.


Brief Synopsis

Elijah’s Violin is a family opera in one act, adapted from a Jewish fairy tale.* It features a magical violin which can release the imprisoned melodies of the heart.

When Princess Shulamit is imprisoned in stone by a mirror demon, her brother Prince Raphael and his friend Zohara look for help. Embedded with mindful breathing and audience participation, the opera follows Rafi and Zohara, in their search for Elijah and his magical violin. In the process, they learn to overcome fears and doubts, and along with Shulamit, discover the liberating power of the heart’s true song.

Music by Meira Warshauer. Libretto by Susan Levi Wallach and Meira Warshauer.

*Adapted from the title story Elijah’s Violin, in Elijah’s Violin and other Jewish Fairy Tales, retold by Howard Schwartz, Harper and Rowe, 1983. Mr. Schwartz found the story in the archives of the Hebrew University in Israel, and notes its source as oral tradition, Egypt.

Download Full Synopsis (PDF)


Performance History

  • Audio recording of piano/vocal opera-in-progress by FBN Productions, Inc., Ellen Schlaefer, Director, Columbia, SC, 2017
  • Workshop performance of opera-in-progress with narrator, university and professional singers, professional chamber ensemble, costumes, no staging. UNC-WOOP! (University of North Carolina Wilmington Opera Outreach Project), Nancy King, Director, presented by Temple of Israel, Wilmington, NC, 2018
  • Partially staged production with professional singers and instrumentalists, Yefim Maizel, Stage Director, Jonathan Khuner, Music Director and Conductor, presented by the Interfaith Chapel at the Presidio, San Francisco, CA, 2019.  (View Program)

About the Opera

  • About Elijah’s Violin
  • Elijah’s Violin Score
  • Full Synopsis (PDF)
  • Performance Requirements
  • Meira’s Website

Her music was in turn dynamic, dramatic, romantic, and Jewish folksong in flavor. Tonally, it was both modal and contemporary, and it made colorful use of extended instrumental techniques to mark dramatic moments, such as squawking violin double-stops, a shrieking flute, thumps in a prepared piano, and plucked strings inside the piano. The transcendent violin theme recurred at various enigmatic moments in the story.

- Deon Nielsen Price
Journal of the International Alliance of Women in Music