Santa’s Story Show at the Fugard Theatre

29 August-9 September 2012. The Fugard Theatre hosts this one-woman show, entitled Santa’s Story, performed by the multi award-winning and internationally-acclaimed opera singer opera singer Aviva Pelham. In an evocative mix of storytelling and live music, Pelham tells the touching story of her mother, the 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Santa Pelham.

This story of trials, tribulations and triumph is set in pre-war Germany, where Santa was born from a Jewish family. It recounts of the remarkable attempts made by Santa to survive under Nazi oppression. From Germany she first flew to Spain, where civil war had began, then to France, which had been occupied by the allied forces, and finally to Rhodesia or Zimbabwe, where she married a man, who she had never met and who ended up saving her life.

Accompanied by a vibrant Klezmer band, Pelham shifts through multiple genres and sings in German, Spanish, French, Yiddish, Hebrew and English. This esteemed singer has performed extensively worldwide in prominent operettas and musicals like La Bohéme, My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music, until she decided to bring her mother’s intriguing tale to life through song. This story carries some moving universal messages of courage, tenacity and hope against prejudice, intolerance, displacement and acceptance.