Opera in 2 acts, 8 scenes and an epilogue
Libretto by Alexander Medwedew
1st performed, in concert, 2006, Moscow
1st staged performance July 21 2010, Bregenz Festival
This production first seen March 1 2015
Sung in several languages, with German & English surtitles
Introductory talks (in German) in the Holzfoyer 30 mins before curtain up, available here shortly before opening night and everywhere where podcasts are to be found.
Transatlantic liner 1960. Lisa's going to Brazil with her husband Walter, a German diplomat at the height of his career. She sees another passenger who looks like someone she was sure had died – Marta. She's so shaken by memories that come flooding back that she confesses to Walter that she was a warder in Auschwitz during the war. This revelation rocks their marriage. Walter fears a possible diplomatic scandal. Lisa asks a steward to find out where the woman comes from. 1944. Morning roll call in the concentration camp. Three bored SS men exchange cynical remarks about the prisoners. Lisa selects a female Polish inmate to help her. It's Marta. Barracks Women from all over Europe find themselves in the female barracks. An overseer finds a note written in Polish. Marta is to translate it, out loud. She pretends it's a love letter to her fiancé Tadeusz, to protect other resistance fighters. Act II Storeroom Women are sorting through prisoner's personal effects. An SS man needs a violin for a prisoner to play the Commandant's favourite waltz at a concert. This prisoner is Tadeusz. He's sent to fetch the violin, and sees Marta. Lisa breaks the rules and allows them to meet. Workshop Tadeusz makes jewellery in a workshop for SS officers. Lisa enters and finds a medallion featuring the Madonna, with Marta's face. She offers him another chance to meet Marta. Tadeusz refuses. He doesn't want to be in debt to Lisa. Barracks Marta's 20th birthday. The prisoners wish her freedom. Marta sings a song about death. Lisa finds Marta's roses from Tadeusz. She starts provoking her, saying that he turned down another chance to meet her. Marta doesn't rise to the bait, trusting Tadeusz completely. Yvette is teaching French to Bronka, a Russian inmate. Katja sings a song about Russia. A voice is heard, the Selektion (list of the next people to be executed) is being read out. Lisa spared Marta so that she can attend Tadeusz' concert. Transatlantic liner Lisa and Walter decide to forget the past. They go to dance in the saloon. The female passenger makes a request. The Commandant's favorite waltz is played. Concert Tadeusz plays Bach's Chaconne instead of the Commandant's waltz. His violin is destroyed as he's taken away. Epilogue Marta is alone, thinking about Tadeusz and her friends. She hopes that all those who suffered and lost their lives in the camp will never be forgotten.
»If I survived, and others didn’t, then it was probably to attest to what Auschwitz was.« Said Zofia Posmysz, explaining why she wrote her novel The (female) Passenger. Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who suffered under the brutality of the SS as well as Stalin’s reign of terror, found a guardian and supporter in Dmitri Shostakovich. It was he who suggested he turn Posmysz' novel into an opera. Director Anselm Weber and set designer Katja Haß cleverly managed to depict different times and places – present day and memories: A ship sailing to Brazil in the 1950s. Lisa and her husband Walter are on their way to start a new life when an encounter suddenly confronts Lisa with the past, when she was a KZ guard in Auschwitz. Is the other passenger a former prisoner, Marta? Lisa was convinced she had died but now stands face to face with her. Walter’s dumbfounded and fears for his future as a diplomat – he knew nothing of his wife’s past.
