Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 3- Fiddler #2

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 16 shape-shifting utility of the beloved musical, Wonder of Wonders explores how a work of popular culture can glow with a radiant afterlife, illuminating for different audiences the pressing issues of their times. Specifically, it is a story about theater, the making of it and the meanings that come from the messy and marvelous collaborations that are its essence—interactions among artists, between artists and audiences, between a show and the world. The story begins at the source: Sholem-Aleichem, the great Yiddish writer who created Tevye in a short story in 1894 and, over the next two decades, occasionally put a new chapter about his tragicomic hero into the world. Best beloved as a story writer, Sholem-Aleichem also created novels and plays and he was eager to break into New York’s Yiddish theater scene. His first major foray into the theater, with his first full-length play, was a smash. Called Tsezeyt un tseshpreyt ( Scattered Marvin Lichtner Maria Karnilova,Bea Arthur,and Zero Mostel at a recording session for the legendary original cast album.