TheatreHD Opera Club in GUM Cinema. The Passenger. Special screening with Lyalya Kandaurova
Оперный клуб TheatreHD в Кинозале ГУМ. Пассажирка. Спецпоказ с Лялей Кандауровой
On May 22 at 7:00 PM, we’re screening "The Passenger" by Mieczysław Weinberg at the Opera Club inside the GUM Cinema Hall — in the stunning production by David Pountney that captivated audiences at the Bregenz Festival. The brilliant musical interpretation is brought to life by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under the genius direction of Teodor Currentzis!
Before the screening, we’ll sit down with musician, journalist, and wonderful lecturer Lyalya Kandaurova to discuss the composer’s extraordinary fate, the opera’s creation, and the Bregenz production.
The opera’s plot centers on a chance encounter aboard an ocean liner fifteen years after the war. Lisa, a former concentration camp guard, comes face to face with one of her former prisoners, Marta. Lisa is traveling to South America with her husband, a German diplomat who knows nothing about his wife's past. Thrown together on the same ship, Lisa and Marta are forced to confront each other, and the horrors of the past come vividly back to life.
Mieczysław Weinberg considered The Passenger the work of his life, but the opera had a difficult stage destiny: it was never performed during his lifetime. The score — highly praised by Dmitri Shostakovich and described by Georgy Sviridov as "written with the blood of the heart" — remained banned for many years.
Finally, in 2010, the world’s first fully staged production of The Passenger premiered at the Bregenz Festival, co-produced with the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, the English National Opera in London, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. Unsurprisingly, it became a true sensation: a hymn to humanism, the raw nerve of the twentieth century — a grand, triumphant, and electrifying discovery.
Mieczysław Weinberg considered The Passenger the work of his life, but the opera had a difficult stage destiny: it was never performed during his lifetime. The score — highly praised by Dmitri Shostakovich and described by Georgy Sviridov as "written with the blood of the heart" — remained banned for many years.
Finally, in 2010, the world’s first fully staged production of The Passenger premiered at the Bregenz Festival, co-produced with the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, the English National Opera in London, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. Unsurprisingly, it became a true sensation: a hymn to humanism, the raw nerve of the twentieth century — a grand, triumphant, and electrifying discovery.
TheatreHD Opera Club at the GUM cinema hall
The Opera Club at GUM is a space for those who wish to stay abreast of new opera productions, take an interest in contemporary interpretations of the classics, and strive for a vibrant dialogue on the evolution of the opera art.
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