Shostakovich called it “a perfect masterpiece … thematically topical in the extreme … an opera which I love and in whose destiny I believe.” Others have demurred, grudgingly labeling Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger (1967–1968) a masterwork. Although there’s no denying that the only opera by a composer who experienced firsthand the horrors of anti-Semitism and fascist oppression is grippingly intense and emotionally riveting, its 190-minute tale of Nazi brutality and postwar rationalization is also as unrelentingly severe as its subject matter.
Weinberg’s music has experienced a well-deserved revival since The Passenger received its posthumous concert premiere in Moscow in 2006, a decade after his death. Key to its power is the composer’s life journey. Born in Warsaw in 1919 and schooled at the Warsaw Conservatory, Weinberg fled Poland for Russia at the outbreak of World War II, soon before his parents and sister died in a Nazi concentration camp. Subsequently, he too might have perished during the reign of Stalin had not his close friend Shostakovich interceded on his behalf and Stalin died shortly thereafter. While not all of Weinberg’s music is bleak — his Trumpet Concerto, which the Oakland East Bay Symphony performs on Friday night, Feb. 24, quotes Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” — The Passenger certainly is.
First staged at the Bregenzer Festspiele 2010, in a coproduction with Wielki Teatr Warschau, English National Opera, and Teatro Real Madrid, the premiere production has recently appeared on a high-resolution Blu-ray disc, playable on both surround-sound and stereo systems. (The opera is not available on DVD.) It features an exceptionally strong cast, the Wiener Symphoniker under the animated baton of Teodor Currentzis, and vivid direction by David Pountney. Although some gestures and expressions appear overdone under the Blu-ray microscope, they undoubtedly broadcast well in the theater.
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The opera opens with chilling volleys of militaristic percussion that both seize attention and serve as an omen for what is to come. The libretto by Alexander Medvedev, after the eponymous novel by Zofia Posmysz, introduces a German diplomat, Walter, and his wife, Lisa, who are en route to Brazil on an ocean liner in the early 1960s. As Walter contemplates their new life, Lisa sees a veiled passenger who resembles Martha, a Polish prisoner of war who she is sure is dead.
To increasingly agitated music, Lisa reveals to her husband that she was an S.S. overseer in Auschwitz. Walter’s fear that his career will be ruined, as well as the continued presence of the passenger, triggers a series of haunting flashbacks on Lisa’s part that take us into the depths of Auschwitz. Truth, suffering, and denial emerge in equal measure.
The Passenger has moments of extreme poignancy and several unequivocally beautiful arias and ensembles. Although some passages are far too reminiscent of Shostakovich, much of the music is immensely colorful and eloquent. It’s also superbly sung by Michelle Breedt, Roberto Sacca, the phenomenal and fearless Elena Kelessidi, Artur Rucinski, and a supporting cast that performs some of its finest arias. For its death-defying ending, in which prisoner Tadeusz, Martha's beloved fiancé, flies in the face of his captors by playing Bach’s Chaconne rather than the Governor’s favorite waltz before guards and prisoners alike, and several other heart-rending scenes in which prisoners affirm life against overwhelming odds, it is sure to earn your respect, and perhaps your love.