The Passenger: Ekaterinburg Opera (Mieczyslaw Wajnberg) (2018)
2h 41min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Opera in 2 acts with an epilogue, Op. 97...'The Passenger' is the first of seven operas by Weinberg, a Polish Jew who escaped from Poland, without his family, to the Soviet Union when the Nazis invaded in 1939. 'The Passenger' is based on the real-life experience of Holocaust survivor Zofia Posmysz, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War II. Posmysz’s book, The Passenger, forms the basis of the libretto by Alexander Medvedev. While sailing to Brazil, Lisa, a former SS Officer from Auschwitz, believes she sees a former inmate and confesses her past to her husband. Interwoven with the story are flashbacks to her time in the concentration camp. Weinberg’s opera was effectively banned in the USSR and only received its premiere in Bregenz fourteen years after the composer’s death. An encounter between two women - one a former Auschwitz guard, the other a former prisoner - plunges them both back into the horrors of the Holocaust, pitting perpetrator against victim in a moral battle between guilt and denial, retribution and absolution. - Studio:
- Discovery Records
- Genres:
- Music & Musicals, Performing Arts, Special Interest
- Countries:
- Russia
