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In a 2010 article in The Jewish Magazine, Mendel Weinberger understands “Dona Dona” as a reference to the struggle between the physical and the spiritual. Over time, the song has been interpreted in many different ways. While Zeitlin – who was living in Poland in the 1930s – was certainly aware of the growing threat of Nazism, he composed the song before the Holocaust began. Indeed, some maintain that “Dona Dona” represents the tremendous suffering and loss of life Jews experienced in the Holocaust. This terrible loss haunted Zeitlin for the rest of his life. His wife, two children, father and brother were killed in the Holocaust. With the outbreak of the war, however, he was unable to sail back to his family. Zeitlin was invited to New York for the performance of Esterke, which is an indication of how influential Yiddish theatre was in the pre-Second World War Jewish cultural world.
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Male and female actors sang “Dona Dona” as a solo, as a duet and as a chorus with orchestration. The play about Esterke and Kazimierz the Great was a Polish-Jewish mystery in four acts. Zeitlin first published it in 1932 in Globus, the Yiddish literary journal he edited. “Dona Dona” was part of Zeiltin’s Yiddish play Esterke, based on the legendary relationship of a Jewish woman named Esther and King Casimir of Poland. Zeiltin’s original “Dos Kelbl” was put to music by Sholom Secunda in 1956, Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz translated it into English. It has been sung in Japanese, German, French (in this version, the calf is replaced by a boy trying to figure out his future) Swedish, Hebrew, Russian, Italian, Catalan and Vietnamese. Over a 75-year period, Aaron Zeitlin’s “Dona Dona” (in Yiddish, “ Dos Kelbl,” “The Calf”) has been sung by some of the 20th century’s biggest English-speaking performers, including Joan Baez, Donovan, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Chad & Jeremy, and countless others. How does a 1940 Yiddish theatre song – probably based on a passage from the Talmud’s Tractate Bava Metzia – end up becoming a popular piece sung around the world? A death well-planned – an excerpt from Anne of Oasis.Reflections of her childhood – an excerpt from The Singing Forest.Community milestones … Goldschmidt, Mines, BGU & Weizmann Institute.Made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). It has been sung by performers including Nechama Hendel, André Zweig, Chava Alberstein, Esther Ofarim, Theodore Bikel, Karsten Troyke, Sumi Jo, Claude François, and Hélène Rollès together with Dorothée.A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project.
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It became especially popular after being recorded by Joan Baez in 1960, Donovan in 1965 and Patty Duke in 1968.ĭana Dana has been translated into and recorded in many other languages including German, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and Vietnamese. The lyrics were translated again in the mid-1950s by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, and the song became well known with their text. Secunda translated Dana Dana into English (changing the vocalization of dana to dona), but this version failed to gain popularity. Secunda wrote "ha ha ha" for the choral score with the broken chords. There are some difference between the original and the melody that are well known. Secunda wrote "molto rit." (suddenly much more slowly) for the ending of the first verse. Then "he" sings the melody, and "she" sometimes sings "Dana", other times sings "Ah" with a high voice or technical passage. Although singing the third part of "Dana Dana" (="Dana Dana Dana Dana…") the man sometimes sings lower than the melody using disjunct motions. First, a woman (Secunda wrote "she") sings four bars and then the man (Secunda wrote "he") sings the next four. He wrote "piu mosso" (more rapidly) for the refrain and some passages that emphasize the winds. The melody of the introduction was also used at the end of the song. He wrote for the choral score "andantino" (somewhat slowly) and "sempre staccato" (play staccato always). The Yiddish text was written with roman alphabet. Secunda wrote "Dana-" for the orchestral score and "Dana Dana" for the vocal scores. The original is 2/4, in G minor for a duo of a man and a woman, choral with the orchestral accompaniment. The orchestra plays the Dana Dana melody at several points in Esterke. The text underlay in the score and parts is otherwise romanized in a phonetic transcription oriented toward stage German. The lyric sheet is in typewritten Yiddish and handwritten Yiddish lyrics also appear in the piano score. The lyrics, score, parts, and associated material are available online in the Yiddish Theater Digital Archives. Dana Dana was written for the Aaron Zeitlin stage production Esterke (1940–41) with music composed by Sholom Secunda.