As concert halls globally celebrate World Opera Day, the Israeli Opera is instead marking the day by sharing a version of “Bring Him Home” from Les Misérables, with hearts and minds focused on the 220 captives held in Gaza.
Each year, World Opera Day is celebrated on October 25, the birthday of Georges Bizet and Johann Strauss II, composers of the famous opera and operetta “Carmen” and “Die Fledermaus,” respectively.
During the day, opera companies, artists, opera lovers and opera professionals celebrate the world and art of opera.
This year, the Israeli Opera is asking opera houses around the world to support the effort to bring home all Israeli hostages in Gaza, and share their recording.
The song and effort invoke Bring Them Home Now, the volunteer-based Hostage and Missing Families Forum created immediately following the October 7 Hamas massacres, when some 1,400 Israel were murdered and 220 people were abducted from their homes, towns and from an outdoor party, and taken to Gaza.
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Israeli Opera soloists Anat Czarny and Oded Reich sang the lyrics accompanied on piano by conductor David Sebba, who arranged the version of the famous Les Misérables song.
The recording was very personal for soloists Czarny and Reich, who were both affected by the attacks.
Reich’s longtime friend and their children were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities where dozens of people were killed or abducted.
Czarny’s cousin and the cousin’s pregnant wife and children spent 12 hours in their sealed room, also at Be’eri, holding shut the door to their room so that the terrorists couldn’t enter.
“When the terrorists broke in, he wrote, ‘We love you,'” said Czarny, in an interview on Channel 13.
Somehow, Czarny’s cousins survived, thought their parents did not, and she brought them to her house, still wearing their pajamas, their feet blackened from their house that was set ablaze. They’re still with her for the time being.
“Your heart is broken by this,” said Reich. “You think, they’ll be back, this will end, this can’t be happening.”
Music, added Reich, is often a way to reach people who aren’t thinking about what’s happening in Israel.
“They know this song, and what it means, and maybe it will speak to them,” he said.
