Live-Klezmer-Soundtrack: Die Stadt ohne Juden
The restored silent film from 1924 with live Klezmer music by American musicians Alicia Svigals and Donald Sosin.
*DIE STADT OHNE JUDEN* is considered one of the most significant Austrian productions of the interwar years. Based on Hugo Bettauer’s novel, the film foresaw, with chilling prescience, the cultural and economic impoverishment of a city following the expulsion of its Jewish population. In 2015, previously lost but crucial scenes were discovered, and thanks to a major crowdfunding campaign, Filmarchiv Austria carried out an extensive restoration. Today, the film is available in its almost complete original version, articulating its political message and depiction of murderous anti-Semitism more sharply. Although the film adopts a darkly comedic tone and is stylistically influenced by German Expressionism, it features unsettlingly realistic and threatening sequences, such as scenes of freight trains transporting Jews out of the city. The film’s sharp critique of National Socialism is one reason why it was no longer publicly screened after 1933.
Violinist/composer Alicia Svigals is the world's leading Klezmer violinist and founder of the Grammy Award-winning Klezmatics. She has performed with and written for violinist Itzhak Perlman and collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, playwrights Tony Kushner and Eve Ensler, poet Allen Ginsberg, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Debbie Friedman, and Chava Alberstein. Svigals received a commission from the Foundation for Jewish Culture for her original score for the 1918 film *The Yellow Ticket* and is a MacDowell Fellow. Her CD *Fidl* (1996) revived the Klezmer fiddle tradition, and her latest album, *Beregovski Suite: Klezmer Reimagined*, with jazz pianist Uli Geissendoerfer, offers a unique take on long-forgotten Jewish music from Ukraine.
Pianist/composer Donald Sosin grew up in Rye, New York, and Munich. Sosin has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Denver Silent Film Festival and the Best Original Film Score award from the Mystic Film Festival in 2022. His scores for silent films, often performed with his wife, singer and percussionist Joanna Seaton, have been presented at the Lincoln Center, MoMA, BAM, the National Gallery, and major film festivals in New York, San Francisco, Telluride, Hollywood, Yorkshire, Pordenone, Bologna, Shanghai, Bangkok, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and Jecheon (South Korea), as well as at numerous universities. He has collaborated with Alexander Payne, Isabella Rossellini, Dick Hyman, Jonathan Tunick, Comden and Green, Martin Charnin, Mitch Leigh, and Cy Coleman, and has performed for Mikhael Baryshnikov, Mary Travers, Marni Nixon, Howie Mandel, Geula Gill, and many others. His recordings are featured on Criterion, Kino, Milestone, Flicker Alley, and European labels, and his scores are often heard on TCM. Sosin has received commissions from MoMA, EYE Amsterdam, the Deutsche Kinemathek, L'Immagine Ritrovata, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. He resides with his family in rural Connecticut.