The Jewish community in Trieste, a city in northern Italy, last week launched its inaugural summer cultural festival.

Called Erev-Laila, the Hebrew words for evening and night, the summer-long event will take place in the garden of the Carlo e Vera Wagner Jewish museum from July 5 to August 25.

The main theme of the festival is the Jewish world seen from the point of view of klezmer music and theatre.

First Of Its Kind

The cultural project is the first programme of its kind to be organised by the small Jewish community in Trieste, located in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region which borders Austria, Croatia and Slovenia.

The idea for the festival originated from the collaboration between the museum’s head Ariel Haddad and Davide Casali, a multi-talented musician from Trieste.

After the Jewish community offered to sponsor Erev Laila its leaders nominated Casali as Art Director of the Festival

Good Response

American klezmer band ’The Musical Mavens’ from Boston opened the festival on July 5.

After the opening concert Casali told EJP that he is very happy about the way the audience responded to the festival in such a culturally rich city.

During the festival Casali will showcase his new musical theatre show “Passover", a klezmer-folk-rock interpretation of the Passover Seder, which features many of its songs, tales and atmospheres.

Casali has been the leader of the award-winning Original Klezmer Ensemble since its formation in 1993.

Milestones achieved by the Ensemble include recording the soundtrack for the Italian movie “Era meglio morire da piccoli” and three CDs.

Following the conclusion of Erev Laila, Casali will begin his Italian and American tour of "Passover".

The festival is scheduled to close with Italian premieres of the following plays: "Un attore e’ un attore" ("An actor is an actor”) by Zijah Sokolovic on August 23 and "Rose" by American London-based writer Martin Sherman, on August 25.

Rose takes the audience on the restless journey of 20th century Jewish life, from a Ukrainian shtetl to the Warsaw ghetto to Atlantic City and Florida, with side trips to a hippie commune in Connecticut and an Israeli settlement on the West Bank.