Her emotion...

Sample "Délivre-nous" 1m41s (French)

After watching the DVD "The Prince of Egypt", we have a very special moment taking place in the making of the movie, more specific, the making of the song "Deliver us". Ofra shares with us her emotion and relief after having successfully achieved her challenge. One thing for sure, Steven Spielberg definitely was right in chosing her to sing in the movie.

 

Ofra confesses how much she is in touch with this song, and how much the emotion passes through it. She has managed, so well, so perfectly to express the sadness as she let Moses goes. Talking about that, there's a little story behind that success, as cute as it can get: While recording the song, one was thinking despite the fabulous feeling showing off from the song, there was still a little something missing to make the difference. Thus, Ofra ended with a baby doll and the little thing turned out to be huge. Ofra totally opened up her heart and soul as much as she could, giving everyone in the room the chill as nearly all started to cry. This simple, yet genuine action, allowed Ofra to transcend herself way above she could ever think of. As we see in the movie Yocheved holding tight to Moses, we now see Ofra holding tight to this doll and we can only feel the same as they all once did in that recording studio. Ofra doesn't have a voice, she has a holy gift.

So we can only admire for having shared that intense feeling in 17 languages! The photos actually express the emotion that is running within Ofra.

 

A little interview about Ofra and the movie issued from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, (3 March 2000, 26 Adar I 5760).

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=3699

I interviewed her a year ago at her home in Herzliya, north of Tel-Aviv. She sat in the long, narrow living room listening to her own soundtrack recording of the lament Yocheved, Moses' mother, sang as she launched the infant lawgiver into the bulrushes in Steven Spielberg's "The Prince of Egypt".
The stereo was blaring disco-loud. Tensed in a cozy chair beneath half a dozen golden discs, Ofra -- tiny, dark and lean as a waif -- shut her eyes tightly, swayed to the music and rubbed both arms as if her life depended on it.
"I'm shivering," she said. "I have goose bumps, and I feel like 'Wow!' Immediately I'm in the story. I'm sweating, I'm sad. The first time I saw the movie, I cried. You forget you're seeing an animated movie. When Yocheved puts Moses in the river, there is fear in her heart. It's so real. When you listen to the song, it means something unbelievable. I cannot avoid it. I can listen a thousand times, and again I feel the power of it."
In another singer, that might be have been dismissed as hype. In Ofra it rang true. Although she boasted five international albums, a Grammy nomination and placed second in the 1983 Eurovision song contest, there was still something artless about her. She giggled in mock-dismay when reminded of her first hit, "Ani Frecha" ("I'm a Bimbo").
For the Moses movie, she recorded Yocheved's song in 14 languages. She demonstrated half a dozen for me -- in German, Greek, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian and Portuguese -- from a crib sheet written in Hebrew script. The film's director had given her a doll to hold while she sang. She had no children of her own, but was eager for a family after marrying for the first time only two years before her death.
She had lived abroad, in California and Germany. She spoke five languages -- Hebrew, English, German, French and Italian. She had recorded with the Sisters of Mercy, Paul Anka and Iggy Pop. She sang, in Hebrew, for another recent film, "The Governess."
Ofra rejoiced in her success, but the joy owed more to wonder than vanity. She thanked God, with an easy, inherited piety. "All the time," she said, "I see in front of my eyes my parents who educated me to appreciate what God gave me. You know, I came from a poor neighborhood. We were five children in one bed. I never slept in a bed of my own. Then suddenly I'm staying in first-class hotels, driving in limousines, flying first-class. Every day I say 'Shema Yisrael' and thank God for giving me this opportunity."
She was, she conceded, more traditional than observant. She lit candles on Shabbat. On her travels abroad, she wouldn't eat non-kosher meat. She tried to avoid Friday night bookings. But she did drive on Shabbat.
"I don't know what I would have done without believing in God," she said. "His support gives me power and energy to continue to be optimistic, to smile, not to be depressed. Sometimes, if things are not going so well, I don't cry. I say maybe it's meant to be."
Her house, where she greeted me in jeans and sweat shirt, had a paddock with sleek black horses and a couple of Shetland ponies. There was a billiard table in the living room, modern Israeli paintings on the walls. But she insisted that she felt closer than ever to her parents.
"I understand them," she explained. "I understand where they came from, what their lifestyle was there. But my parents didn't push us to be like them. They said do whatever you think right, but remember the important things in life."