MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG

THE
PASSENGER
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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER 



First page of the handwritten score of Weinberg’s opera The Passenger, Op. 97.

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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER 


The Passenger

Mieczysław Weinberg composed his opera The Passenger in 1968, based on

a novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz.

Early on, Weinberg’s friend Dmitri Shostakovich proclaimed the opera a

masterpiece and sought to use all of his influence to bring it to the stage in
Russia:

“I shall never tire of my enthusiasm for Weinberg’s opera The Passenger. I

have heard it three times already, I have studied the score, and each time, I
have come to an even deeper understanding of the beauty and greatness of
his music. It is a masterpiece, perfect in form and style and, I might add,
exceptionally timely in its subject matter. The moral concept at the heart of
this opera, its spirituality and humanism, will not fail to impress the listener.
The music is profoundly shattering in its drama. It is poignant and vividly
formed; it does not contain one single empty, indifferent note.”

The opera deals with guilt and its repression after the Holocaust. Many years
after the end of the Second World War, the former warden of a concentra-
tion camp in Auschwitz, Anneliese Kretschmar, on a trip with her husband
aboard an ocean liner bound for Brazil, recognizes one of her former prison-
ers: Marta. The chance encounter of these two women gives rise to a pow-
erful drama of utmost intensity.

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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER 


„When asked in the last years of his life which work he considered to be his
most important, Weinberg answered without hesitation: The Passenger.”1

Date of Creation 1968

Orchestration 4 S, 3 M, 2 A, 2 T, Bar, 3 B, 3 actors, mx cho; 3-3-3-A sax-3, 6-4-

3-bar-1, timp, perc (3), cel, pf, gtr, str; Stage Band: acdn, gtr, pf,
perc, db

Duration 140’

Description Opera in 2 acts

Libretto Alexander Medvedev

Text Source Zofia Posmysz, Pasażerka, Warsaw 1962

Concertante Premiere December 25, 2006, Dom Musiki, Moscow, Russia

Fully Staged Premiere July 19, 2010, Bregenz Festspiele, Bregenz, Germany

Additional Performances Teatr Wielki Warsaw 2010, 2012, 2016 (Co-production Bregenz)
English National Opera London 2011 (Co-production Bregenz)
Baden State Theatre Karlsruhe 2013 (New Production)
Houston Grand Opera 2014 (Co-production Bregenz)
Lincoln Center Festival New York 2014 (Guest Appearance of the
Houston Grand Opera)
Lyric Opera of Chicago 2015 (Co-production Bregenz)
Detroit Opera House 2015 (Co-production Bregenz)
Frankfurt Opera 2015 (New Production)
Florida Grand Opera in Miami 2016 (Co-production Bregenz)
Theater an der Wien 2016 (Guest Appearance of Frankfurt Opera)
Ekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre 2016 (New
Production)
Bolshoi Theatre 2017 (Guest Appearance of Ekaterinburg State
Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre)
Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen 2017 (New Production)
New Opera Theatre Moscow 2017 (New Production)
Semperoper Dresden 2017 (Co-production Frankfurt/Main)

1
David Fanning, Mieczysław Weinberg. In Search of Freedom, Wolke Verlag 2010, S. 117. The interview is printed in: Ljudmila Nikitina, Počti ljuboj mig
žizni – rabota [Nearly every moment of my life is work], Muzïkal’naja akademiya, 1994/5, pp. 17–24, here p. 23.
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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER 


Press

John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, 2015

“The Passenger is unflinching in what it has to say but is never maudlin – it plays to our humanity
rather than our tear ducts. […] What Lyric [Opera of Chicago] has given us in an experience in the
theatre that is not to be missed.”

Die Welt, 2013

“We are only gradually coming to realize how important Weinberg was as a music dramatist. […] And
now the big houses in Germany should finally also step up.”

Frankfurter Rundschau, 2013

“No one but Mieczyslaw Weinberg has risked elevating the unspeakably horrific into such vulnerable
musical ‘beauty’ and, in the process, making the impossible nevertheless possible – if anything is an
artistic expression of bravery and radicality, then this is it.”

The Times, 2011

“[...] heartbreaking scenes of love and courage. The climax musically and emotionally comes when
Marta’s proud violinist fiancé, Tadeusz, sung with compelling anger by Leigh Melrose, is ordered to
play the camp commandant’s favourite tacky waltz, but instead strikes up Bach’s magnificent
Chaconne… a supremely symbolic confrontation – Germany at its noblest confronting Germany at its
foulest. It’s an opera teeming with overt references, from haunting Russian folksong to blaring
German marches, as well as astringent string writing reminiscent of Britten. It is a compelling
historical document that demanded an airing – lest we forget.”

Kurier (Vienna), 2010

“An exemplary, emotional, powerful 20th century opera that unites the highly personal with the
tragedy of world history. […] One would gladly toss out any one of the worn out warhorses from the
opera repertoire for it.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2010

“What a discovery! […] a 24-year-old opera of grandiose power, drama, and its own entirely unique
beauty. This opera is a masterpiece.”

nmz (Neue Musikzeitung), 2010

“The score […] culminates in a musical combination whose effect may be unique in the history of the
20th century. […] Music as the human answer to inhuman conditions.”

Die Zeit, 2010

“By far the most important opera in the Russian language since the Second World War. […] He is one
of the most important Russian composers.”

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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER

MieczysÓaw Weinberg [1919-1996]

Mieczysław Weinberg and his family shared a fate not unlike that of countless Jews during the 20th
century. During a dreadful Easter pogrom in 1903, his paternal grandfather and great-grandfather
were simply murdered along with many other Jews by their otherwise amiable neighbors. After the
German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis killed his parents and his sister, and in 1948 Stalin's
secret police murdered his father-in-law. Weinberg himself was arrested on February 6, 1953 on
vague anti-Semitic charges, and it was only Stalin's death just one month later that saved his life. He
would live another 43 years and, despite his foreign origins, reach an eminently important position
among Soviet composers.

It is almost impossible to imagine how, after such repeated, dramatic strokes of fate, a human being
can manage to rise to such unique artistic greatness. The subject matter of his works, though, very
often deal with the Jewish fate, they describe the tragedy of children in the midst of war and killing
with astounding compassion and reveal an overall pacifist conviction. This is also true of those works
that have no - or at least no published - program or text. The composer himself once said: “Many of
my works have to do with the subject of war. This, unfortunately, was not my own choice. It was dic-
tated to me by my fate, by the tragic fate of my family. I see it as my moral duty to write about war,
about the atrocities that have befallen mankind in our century.”

Mieczysław Weinberg was born in Warsaw, where his father was employed as a musician and com-
poser at a Jewish theater. Both parents were Jewish. At the age of ten, Weinberg himself debuted as
pianist and conductor at the same theater and as a twelve-year-old, began studies in piano with Jozef
Turczynski at the Conservatory. His future as an international piano virtuoso appeared all but assured.
Yet immediately after his final exams in 1939, war broke out, forcing him to flee Warsaw from the
advancing German forces. He reached the Belarus capital of Minsk, where he studied composition
with Vassily Zolotaryov, a former student of Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov.

The day after his final examinations in June 1941, the German army attacked the Soviet Union and
Weinberg was forced to flee again, this time to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent where he worked as a
rehearsal pianist at the opera and also composed works for the stage. There he married Natalya Mi-
choels, the daughter of the artist Solomon Michoels.

Dmitri Shostakovich had, in the meantime, come to hear of Weinberg's great talent. Upon seeing the
score of his first symphony, he was so impressed that he personally procured an official permit for
Weinberg to reside in Moscow. In 1943, the couple relocated to the Soviet capital, where Weinberg
would spend the rest of his life, and a close friendship began between the two composers. They con-
sulted one another with each new composition, Shostakovich complementing Weinberg as “one of the
most outstanding composers of today” and Weinberg professing how infinitely much he had learned
from his older colleague: “Although I never had lessons with him, I count myself as his pupil, his flesh
and blood”. In Moscow, Weinberg worked as a freelance composer and pianist. In 1948 the political
regime of the USSR began to put pressure on composers, as indeed on other creative artists as well.
To put it simply, in the spirit of “socialist realism”, music was to be more folkloristic and easier to
understand. Optimism was important and the Soviet Union should be duly glorified. Weinberg was not
one of those subjected to particularly harsh criticism, but some of his pieces were placed on the list of
banned works, together with music by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and other great composers. This was

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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER

enough to instill a certain fear among concert organizers of including Weinberg’s music in their pro-
grams, and it forced him to temporarily earn his living writing film and theater music.

His imprisonment in 1953, however, had nothing to do with his music, but with the fact that his wife
was a close relative of Miron Vovsi, the main defendant in the anti-Semitic “Doctors’ Plot” trial. Shos-
takovich courageously interceded on Weinberg’s behalf by sending a petition to the infamous chief of
the secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, but it was Stalin's death that ultimately saved him.

Mieczysław Weinberg’s response to ever-present danger was his life-long enormous musical produc-
tivity – music whose poignant intimacy reflects the bitter-sweet existence of one who has lost every-
thing but can still be grateful for his survival. His catalogue contains more than 150 works; there are,
in addition, innumerable compositions without opus numbers, many of them for the cinema, theater
and radio. He composed 26 symphonies, wrote more than a dozen works for the stage, 17 string
quartets and 28 sonatas for various instruments, as well as a vast amount of music for solo instru-
ments and voice, the latter with texts from a broad variety of international authors. Humor and tragedy
are of equal importance in a creative output that extends from a requiem to circus music; lyricism and
drama complement one another in a compelling architecture to bring about a Gesamtkunstwerk of
rare human depth.

Per Skans/Peermusic Classical GmbH

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 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG – THE PASSENGER 


More Works for the Stage:

The Golden Key, or the Adventures Description: Ballet in 3 acts, 6 scenes with prologue and
of Buratino, epilogue
Op. 55 Date of Creation: 1954, rev. 1961
Duration: 90’
Orchestration: 3-3-3-A sax-3, 4-3-3-1, timp, perc (3), 2 hp, str
Libretto: Alexander Gajamov
Text Source: Aleksey Tolstoy, The Golden Key, or the
Adventures of Buratino
Premiere: June 10, 1962, Moscow, Russia

The Madonna and the Soldier, Description: Opera in 3 acts

Op. 105 Date of Creation: 1970-1971
Duration: 95’
Orchestration: S, M, 3 T, 2 Bar, 2 B, mx cho; 3-3-3-3, 4-3-3-1,
timp, perc (3), hp, cel/pf, mand, acdn, str
Libretto: Alexander Medvedev
Premiere: March 17, 1975, Leningrad, Russia

My D'Artagnan, Description: Opera in 3 acts

Op. 109 Date of Creation: 1971
Duration: 120’
Orchestration: 2 S, 2 M, 3 T, 2 Bar, 1 B, 6 actors, m cho; 2-1-
2-2, 3-3-3-0, timp, perc (3), gtr, hp, mand,
cel/pf, str
Libretto: Elena M. Galperina
Text Source: Alexandre Dumas, The Three Muskateers
Premiere: December 23, 1974, Moscow, Russia (variation)

Celebrate with us the 100th birthday of Mieczysław Weinberg in 2019.

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