Lechaim! – Essen, Trinken, Feiern

Lechaim! is a toast to life: Listen to Jewish drinking songs, table songs and musical stories about enjoyment and conviviality.

Bread on the table, a plate Borscht, maybe a piece of gefilte fish - and someone starts singing. Many songs that have talked about eating, drinking and being together for generations begin like this or something similar. Because where we eat together, we also talk and remember, laugh and celebrate - often in a mixed group, around the table, which means the whole world for one evening.

In this program, the Vienna Jewish Choir brings songs that come from the kitchen and are intended for the table: drinking songs, table songs and musical stories about enjoyment and conviviality. They talk about everyday life and celebrations, about simple meals and special moments - sung on long evenings when the focus is on being together.

And sometimes it gets quieter. Between two songs, between two courses, there is also a place for those songs that tell of love, of closeness and longing, of hope and the desire for peace. Because all of this is just as much a part of the evening together as bread and wine.

Many of these songs were not written for the stage, but for singing together - between two courses, when toasting or when the table has already been cleared and no one wants to go home. They are direct, sometimes cheeky, sometimes quiet, sometimes melancholic, sometimes humorous - but always close to life.

Lechaim! is a musical toast to the common: to full pots and empty glasses, to shared bread and shared time, to songs that bring people together - happy and thoughtful, exuberant and quiet. In short: on life.