Susanna Sultana – A Song Cycle

After the war, Susanna emigrates to Israel with her husband and children. In a small settlement, she is assigned a house that had previously belonged to an Arab family. No sooner has she entered the house than she senses the spirit and presence of the mother who had been forced to leave her home for the sake of her family: she gives her the name “Sultana.” #

The connection to this unknown woman will never leave Susanna for the rest of her life.

Many years later, the Berlin-based soprano Alma Sadé, granddaughter of Susanna Moshonov, encounters an Arab woman in Berlin. In her, she finds her very own “Sultana”—and decides to explore her grandmother’s story through a song cycle.

The composer Elena Kats-Chernin and the author Susanne Felicitas Wolf take the life story of Susanna Moshonov as the basis for a multifaceted and richly colored work for soprano and chamber ensemble.

In Susanna Sultana, they tell—through these moving stories of women—in a compelling and poetic way about the intertwining of individual fates with politics and world history. A powerful homage to coexistence and understanding.

• Alma Sadé, soprano
• Elenora Pertz, piano
• Byol Kang, violin
• Jone Bolibar Núñez, clarinet
• Wassim Mukdad, oud
• Arnulf Ballhorn, double bass