A Conversation with Osvaldo Golijov
by Habitus · 02/05/08
You’ve said that writing La Pasión según San Marcos was a chance to “understand your own childhood.”
Right, to understand my preconceptions about the Other, and the differences between me and my Christian friends. The Catholic Church in Argentina was, as an institution, pretty anti-Semitic. I couldn’t ask questions of my parents or teachers, either. They would say, “Anything Jesus said, Hillel said first.” [laughter] There was a kind of Jewish chauvinism.
I wrote the Pasión in order to take a step towards the Other and to lose my fear, which is one of the great things of life. I was drawn to the craziness of the idea of a Jew writing a Passion. On the other hand, I could make a project that was not just a musical work, but also a personal challenge—a challenge to my Jewishness.
I was working with a choir that had never met a Jew before, but they knew the story of the Passion by heart. I had to be really open to the story, to what Jesus said and who he was. It was an incredible adventure.
You didn’t downplay your subjectivity as a Jew in approaching the material.
I gave an aria to Judas! [laughter] The text is actually from a flamenco song, which says, “I want to die and be born again in a world with more truth.”
I chose to end the piece with the Kaddish. The original text of Mark actually ends with the death of Jesus. A few centuries later, someone added the resurrection scene.
After three years of researching and writing and struggling with the piece, I think Jesus was a great prophet. He offered much that was new, a whole new way of seeing and being in the world. Do I believe he was resurrected? No. Do I believe he was the Messiah? No. Do I believe in any Messiah? No. [laughter] But one thing he did, which makes him more than human, was to lose the fear of death. In that sense he is spiritually superior.
In my heart, I couldn’t leave him there alone on the cross, with his final cry: Elohi, Elohi, Lama Shabachta Ni? [My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?] It’s still a very beautiful moment. For me, it’s like the cry of the whole Latin American continent. But still, I wanted to respect the belief, throughout the whole continent I was representing, in the resurrection. I think the Kaddish is a sublimated version of the resurrection, in the sense that you don’t speak of death—you praise life.
It sounds, from the piece, like you placed Jesus on a very human scale.
Yes, but to me, the human scale is even more striking than the divine.
Many people say that Beethoven was the greatest composer. Why? Because we know how much he struggled, how much he yearned. He was always striving upwards. Whereas it seems that Mozart came down, as if he really were divine. There seems to be no struggle. So, to me, the story of Jesus is even more magnificent at the human scale.
Can a Jewish person really ever speak with authority about the Latin American or Argentine experience?
One of the ideas that really gave me courage was about Rembrandt. I always felt that he was able to enter the Jewish soul in a way that even Chagall wasn’t able to. So my position among the Christians was like Rembrandt among the Jews. I wasn’t one of them but I could see them very closely. I wouldn’t call my perspective one of authority, but perhaps as someone who can reveal, in that story, things that the Christians themselves couldn’t see.
I chose to focus on Cuba and Brazil, which are the places where the syncretism that defines Latin America is the most violent and rich. The convergence of Africa, Spain, Portugal, the natives. The story of the Passion is also syncretic. Part of the universality of the story is that the arc of the myth intertwines with other traditions and, after a while, it simply becomes a kind of pattern.
An interesting example for Latin America is Che [Guevara]. He looked like Jesus. The people also betrayed him. The peasants told the C.I.A. where he was, but after his death they were cutting locks of his hair as relics. The amazing thing about Latin America is the level of superstition. The collective unconscious fills the spaces around all the structure and dogma, like grass that grows between tiles.
Your children were born and raised in America. Would you like them to feel connected to Argentina?
I am very happy they were raised here, with the incredible diversity. It’s a childhood much richer than my own. I was always the odd one in my school. For them to be exposed to the world in this way makes them much richer human beings. They feel connected to Argentina, of course, through the food and the music. Sort of like a Jew who goes to synagogue only on Yom Kippur. [laughter]
Many times, when they were younger and I would enter their classrooms, I was reminded of the world of fear that we grew up with in Argentina. Fascism permeates every level of a society. At my children’s school, I was often just moved—by the art on the walls, the way they were just allowed to be children, in a way I never was.
So would you like them to see themselves as Americans?
Oh, yes, of course! As critical Americans, which I think they will be. They are very intelligent and outspoken.
Do you feel like an American now?
No. [laughter] I’m very happy and grateful to be here. I love living here.
But, you know, the generation of Jews that left Egypt all died before they reached the Promised Land. I feel like the one that managed to sneak in, but who still remembers slavery.
