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NEW YORK -- Under a majestic round blue stained-glass window embellished with a Star of David cutout, the sanctuary at the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was packed on Tuesday evening.
But the 150 people who sat in the rows of dark wooden pews were not here to worship. They had come to see those who would have been part of this congregation over 100 years ago come alive again, in song.
Tuesday night was the New York debut of "Morning Star," an opera composed by Ricky Ian Gordon, a leading writer of vocal music who was sitting in the audience, lip-syncing along with his actors.
"I feel thrilled, I feel like it's very alive," he told The Times of Israel during intermission. "I feel like historically, something is happening here."
Based on a somewhat forgotten 1940s play by the same name, "Morning Star" traces the story of an immigrant Jewish family who, like many in the early 20th century, struggled to find a better life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Exterior, the Eldridge Street Synagogue in Manhattan's Lower East Side. (Kate Milford)
Through their journey, the Feldermans' destinies are shaped by real historical events such as World War I and the Great Depression. But the most direct impact on their lives came from what is today known as the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which erupted 107 years ago on March 25, 1911.
The tragedy killed close to 150 sweatshop garment workers, many of whom were Jewish women. Some were burnt alive, some died of smoke inhalation, and others fell or even jumped to their deaths in despair as the factory went up in flames.
"It's an amazing piece because it's so recent in our history that I find that so many people have a personal connection to it," said the show's artistic director Eric Einhorn. "I, like many American Jews, am the great-grandchild of immigrants; my maternal grandfather came from Romania, he was a tailor, he worked in the area."
"It's about a Jewish family -- which, that in itself transcends time periods entirely," Einhorn said. "To be able to put on stage these kinds of...