On December 6, upstairs at Merkin Hall, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) repeated its festive seasonal program, “A Goyishe Christmas to You!,” led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, at the piano, examining the contributions of Jewish composers to the Christmas canon and giving some traditional melodies a Yiddishe twist. A quintet of wonderful singers, Donna Breitzer, Cantor Joshua Breitzer, Joshua Jeremiah, Alex Mansoori, and Lauren Worsham, along with clarinetist Alan R. Kay, helped illuminate this repertory.
In Howard Levitsky and Marc Miller’s “Candle in My Window (God Bless the Christmas Jews),” Mansoori cheerfully posited that Christmas may be more fun than Chanukah, Blier played Yiddish-sounding motifs after the punchlines, and we all joined in singing the final refrain of the subtitle In a zesty “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” by Frank Loesser, the company fielded three versions of the song: the standard one, with its decades-old sensibility, sung by Worsham and Jeremiah; a Yiddish one, as translated by Binyumen Schaechter, delivered by the Breitzers; and a contemporary treatment, with words by Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski, thanks to Worsham and Mansoori. Mention of masks, Zoom, and booster shots helped make it extremely up-to-date. When Blier recalled for us that he met his spouse, James S. Russell, on New Year’s Eve, 25 years ago, Worsham gave us another Loesser, a hot and romantic “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” to which Kay added a bit of “Auld Lang Syne.”
In a jubilant “Can I Interest You in Hanukkah?,” by Adam Schlesinger and David Javerbaum, Cantor Breitzer sold Mansoori on the joys of Chanukah—and maybe more. Jeremiah and Mansoori were the happy couple, harmonizing and celebrating the “Winter Wonderland.” Providing conflict here was that their son was bullied by the child of a lesbian couple. With Kay, Cantor Breitzer let us know, in Tom Lehrer’s song, that he was spending “Channukah in Santa Monica,” just as he spent the other Jewish holidays in places that more or less rhymed with them—Rosh Hashanah in Arizona, anyone? The ensemble joined him in singing the song’s finale and batting around a dreydl balloon.
Next came a couple of songs that Blier sees as concerning the outsider. Mansoori made Jay Livingston and Ray Evans’ “Silver Bells” the wistful expression of the (Jewish) outsider, looking at a scene that he’s really not a part of. Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” certainly knew what it meant to be different—Blier, Cantor Breizer, and Kay donned red yarmulkes for Kugelplex and Breitzer’s Yiddish-language arrangement of the song, during which Breitzer rhymed “schlemiel” and “spiel” and incorporated several nigunim, with sounds that are not quite words, and Kay interpolated the wedding song “Chasan, Kallah, Mazel Tov,” as a clap-along.
In a sexy “Santa Zaydee” (grandpa), with words by Rebecca Jo Loeb, who was kept away by illness, Worsham, backed by the men, picked up where Eartha Kitt left off, in Joan Javits and Phil and Tony Springer’s “Santa Baby.” In Roy Zimmerman’s song Worsham and Joshua Breitzer made a lighthearted plea—“Don’t Let Gramma Cook Christmas Dinner”—it would be inedible. In “What Makes Santa Run?”, a version of Ervin Drake’s “What Makes Sammy Run?,” after the novel by Budd Schulberg, Jeremiah played Santa Claus’ psychoanalyst, probing what dark secrets Santa might be hiding behind all that jollity.
Donna Breitzer treated us to a tender “Christmas Song,” by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells, as written, and with a wry appended verse by Adam Gopnik, “Nut-brown chests tanned by a swimming pool,” set in Los Angeles in June, when Christmas discs are being recorded. Mansoori modestly offered “My Simple Christmas Wish,” by David Friedman—“I wanna be rich, famous, and powerful”—dropping the name of Lady Gaga, instead of Barbra Streisand, in addition to that of Bette Davis. This “Goyishe Christmas” came to a conclusion with the ensemble’s “White Christmas,” of Irving Berlin, with a wordless and hummed a cappella final verse, and as a merry encore, Marks’ “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
NYFOS’ season at Merkin Hall continues with “Buenas Aires, Then and Now,” on February 15, 2022, with Nicoletta Berry, Raquel González, Brian James Myer, and Joseph Li; “Love Songs in 176 Keys: 4 hands, 4 voices, 4 countries,” on March 15, with Caramoor’s 2022 Vocal Rising Stars; and “The Wider View: Songs by Black Composers,” on April 13, with Aundi Marie Moore, Lucia Bradford, and others to be announced.