Broadcasts from the Lyric Opera of Chicago continue on Classical 90.5 at noon this Saturday, June 27, with a performance of The Passenger by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, set to a libretto by Alexander Medvedev. The performance will be sung in Russian, German, Polish, French, Yiddish, Czech and English, and will run approximately three hours.
There’s no escaping your past. Aboard an ocean liner in the early 1960s, a West German diplomat, Walter, and his wife Liese are bound for a new posting in Brazil. But unbeknownst to her husband, Liese served as an SS officer at Auschwitz. Haunted by her past, she is stunned when she recognizes a fellow passenger; is it really Marta, her former prisoner?
Suppressed for more than 40 years, Weinberg's gripping opera has emerged anew, electrifying audiences at Austria's Bregenz Festival and again in Warsaw and London. The action moves between two realms – from the pristine white deck of a luxury liner above to the dark horrors of the death camp below.
Guilt and denial, lies and truth, fear, courage, and love – it's all present in an artistic and emotional experience you'll never forget.
CAST
Marta: Amanda Majeski
Liese: Daveda Karanas
Walter: Brandon Jovanovich
Tadeusz: Joshua Hopkins
Katya: Kelly Kaduce
Bronka: Judith Forst
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