Matthäus-Passion - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Matthäus-Passion
Oratorio in two parts by Johann Sebastian Bach
Presumed first performance on Good Friday, April 11, 1727 in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on May 5, 2023
recommended from 11 years
3 hours 15 minutes / One break
In German with German and English surtitles
45 minutes before the start of the performance: introduction in the foyer on the right
To the factory
Bach's 1727 St. Matthew Passion originally took place in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig as a religious ritual during the Good Friday liturgy. With Bach's death, however, the monumental, dramatic-epic composition disappeared from the annual church calendar. It was only through Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's legendary Berlin "rediscovery" with the newly founded "Sing-Akademie zu Berlin" that a broad history of reception began 100 years later, as well as a piece of Berlin's cultural history: singing the Passion together and thus also celebrating the "Passion values". ’ encountered the national movement in Germany around 1829. The emergence of a bourgeois, autonomous art religion in Berlin appears to be closely linked to the performances of the St. Matthew Passion, and Bach's Passions continue to be part of the central repertoire of large choirs and choral societies to this day.
To the staging
Benedikt von Peter has attracted attention with his directing work in recent years, above all with unusual spatial solutions in music theater by trying to transfer the respective musical and dramaturgical "architecture of a piece" to the stage and auditorium. In this sense, the Matthew Passion, which was already composed by Bach for double choirs, will be extended to the entire auditorium and the main stage in the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Four orchestras, several groups of the house choir and Berlin singing clubs are spread over the entire room. The audience sits across from each other – in the auditorium and on a grandstand on the main stage – and is invited to sing along at selected points. In the secular opera house, the idea of community as a social sculpture can be experienced through a performative arrangement. The scenic play of the gospel text takes place in the midst of this congregation: children and young people take on the narration and carry the depiction of pain, suffering and death. Close to the audience and embedded in the musical interpretation of the soloists. The central perspective of the peep box is thus abolished in favor of a joint ritual of adults and children, amateur choirs and professional artists, each with their own perspectives on a 2000-year-old text and its impact history: "The story of the evangelist Matthew is one of our oldest stories and contains values and norms underlying Western Christian culture. Seen in this way, the piece is a kind of 'values machine': Through and during the performance, it conveys values such as humility, renunciation, willingness to make sacrifices and charity - values that do not always have it easy in the individualistic 'religion' of the 21st century. When children take over the scenic representation of the passion story, a certain distance also arises. The brutality of the story becomes more apparent. Because it is a story that preaches peacefulness and humility, but at the same time tells of the violence people do to one another.” (Benedikt von Peter)
Subject to change.
Presumed first performance on Good Friday, April 11, 1727 in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on May 5, 2023
recommended from 11 years
3 hours 15 minutes / One break
In German with German and English surtitles
45 minutes before the start of the performance: introduction in the foyer on the right
To the factory
Bach's 1727 St. Matthew Passion originally took place in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig as a religious ritual during the Good Friday liturgy. With Bach's death, however, the monumental, dramatic-epic composition disappeared from the annual church calendar. It was only through Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's legendary Berlin "rediscovery" with the newly founded "Sing-Akademie zu Berlin" that a broad history of reception began 100 years later, as well as a piece of Berlin's cultural history: singing the Passion together and thus also celebrating the "Passion values". ’ encountered the national movement in Germany around 1829. The emergence of a bourgeois, autonomous art religion in Berlin appears to be closely linked to the performances of the St. Matthew Passion, and Bach's Passions continue to be part of the central repertoire of large choirs and choral societies to this day.
To the staging
Benedikt von Peter has attracted attention with his directing work in recent years, above all with unusual spatial solutions in music theater by trying to transfer the respective musical and dramaturgical "architecture of a piece" to the stage and auditorium. In this sense, the Matthew Passion, which was already composed by Bach for double choirs, will be extended to the entire auditorium and the main stage in the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Four orchestras, several groups of the house choir and Berlin singing clubs are spread over the entire room. The audience sits across from each other – in the auditorium and on a grandstand on the main stage – and is invited to sing along at selected points. In the secular opera house, the idea of community as a social sculpture can be experienced through a performative arrangement. The scenic play of the gospel text takes place in the midst of this congregation: children and young people take on the narration and carry the depiction of pain, suffering and death. Close to the audience and embedded in the musical interpretation of the soloists. The central perspective of the peep box is thus abolished in favor of a joint ritual of adults and children, amateur choirs and professional artists, each with their own perspectives on a 2000-year-old text and its impact history: "The story of the evangelist Matthew is one of our oldest stories and contains values and norms underlying Western Christian culture. Seen in this way, the piece is a kind of 'values machine': Through and during the performance, it conveys values such as humility, renunciation, willingness to make sacrifices and charity - values that do not always have it easy in the individualistic 'religion' of the 21st century. When children take over the scenic representation of the passion story, a certain distance also arises. The brutality of the story becomes more apparent. Because it is a story that preaches peacefulness and humility, but at the same time tells of the violence people do to one another.” (Benedikt von Peter)
Subject to change.
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