Max reinhardt the eternal road

The Eternal Road is an opera-oratorio with spoken dialogue in four acts by Kurt Weill with a libretto (originally in German: Der Weg der Verheißung – The Way of the Covenant), by Austrian novelist and playwright Franz Werfel and translated into English by Ludwig Lewisohn.

The Eternal Road premiered at the Manhattan Opera House on January 7, 1937, given a lavish and spectacular production involving 245 actors, and ran for 153 performances.

Max reinhardt the eternal road

Although it received good reviews, it was not revived for 63 years.

The piece was conceived by Zionist activist Meyer Weisgal to alert the then-ignorant public to Hitler's persecution of the Jews in 1937 Germany. Weisgal enlisted the help of director Max Reinhardt, who found Weill to compose the music and Werfel to write the libretto.

Set in a synagogue where Jews hide all night as a pogrom rages outside, the story combines Biblical and pre-World War II Jewish history. The rabbi reads from the Torah, le