Free Passion from Berlin Philharmonic
OrchestrasThe orchestra has posted an Easter gift of the Bach St Matthew Passion in the 2-13 Peter Sellars staging, conducted by Simon Rattle.
The soloists are
Camilla Tilling
Magdalena Kožená
Mark Padmore
Topi Lehtipuu
Christian Gerhaher
Eric Owens
Watch here.
Not a rumor, Peter Gelb has a thing about Sellars and refuses to have him back at the MET.
Balanchine staged it at the Met in 1943 with Stokowski conducting.
Nothing Sellars does is original, and Gelb has access to better talent in NY.
https://www.nytimes.com/1943/04/10/archives/stokowski-stages-bach-miracle-play-vast-audience-attends-passion.html
“A vast audience crowded the Metropolitan Opera House last night to see and to hear a stage version of J.S. Bach’s “Passion According to St. Matthew,” presented as a “modern form of miracle play” by Leopold Stokowski, the conductor, with the collaboration of Robert Edmond Jones, the scenic artist, and George Balanchine, the dancer, and various cohorts of musicians, dancers and “mimes” under their command.”
In this case, PG may have a point.
Since when does the St. Matthew Passion require a “staging”?
Just since the moment someone felt thevurge to stage the Passion.
Doesn’t ‘require’ it, but it has been staged at times, this one being particularly moving. Why not take a look.
I want to see/hear a staging of a Stabat Mater.
When it required hands going together over the head like some Twyla Tharp dance move on every emotive utterance.
Pass.
It does not, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot (or should not) ever be done – preferably tastefully of course.
Peter Sellars gets lotsa blank checks and automatic plaudits for his endless career of mounting utterly conservative productions that merely tweak stage conventions by a click or two. It’s a profitable hat trick.
Not only ‘bad boy’ Peter Sellers, but also Calixto Bieito staged a Bach Passion in 2021, viz. the St. John.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alAL3iWHCsA
Ich folge dir glecihfalls mit freudigen Schritten!
It’s an extraordinary production; I really can’t watch a conventional performance anymore.
I do prefer the original 2010 production; I prefer Albrecht Mayer’s oboe solos and the site of Daishin Kashimoto playing over Thomas Quasthoff in “Gebt mir meinem Jesum wieder!” is priceless.
But this one is worth watching at twice the price.