Following the successful October 2014 performances of ‘Don Giovanni’, with Mariusz Kwiecień in the lead role, Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the premiere of The Passenger by Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg. The opera opens Tuesday, February 24 at Lyric Opera with 6 performances through March 15, starring Amanda Majeski, Daveda Karanas, Brandon Jovanovich, Joshua Hopkins, Kelly Kaduce, Liuba Sokolova.
The Passenger is Mieczysław Weinberg’s powerfully haunting opera conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in a new-to-Chicago production by David Pountney. Performance dates are Feb. 24, 28, Mar. 4, and 9 at 7:30pm; and Mar. 12 and 15 at 2pm. The Passenger will be sung in Polish, German, Russian, French, Yiddish, Greek, Czech, and English with projected English translations.
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) and his librettist Alexander Medvedev (1927-2010) based their opera on the radio play and novelPassenger from Cabin Number 45 by Polish writer and survivor of the German concentration camps Auschwitz Zofia Posmysz. (Now 91, Ms. Posmysz attended the 70th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27.) Zofia Posmysz will be in Chicagofor “Memory and Reckoning” events surrounding the premiere – speaking at the Feb. 15 symposium at the Chicago Cultural Center and attending the opening-night performance of The Passenger on February 24. For complete details on all events and performances go to lyricopera.org/memory.
Composed in 1968 but not performed onstage until 2010 when it premiered at Austria’s Bregenz Festival, The Passenger offers a riveting story of a woman whose past returns to haunt her almost beyond endurance. That woman is Liese (mezzo-soprano Daveda Karanas) who, when first seen, is traveling with her husband Walter (tenor Brandon Jovanovich) to his new diplomatic post in Brazil. On board Liese thinks she sees a Polish woman, Marta (soprano Amanda Majeski), whom she assumed was dead. Liese’s terror becomes obsessive, compelling her to reveal to Walter that she had worked as an overseer at Auschwitz, where Marta had been among the inmates. The rest of the opera concentrates on events involving Liese and Marta at Auschwitz, including Marta’s reunion with her lover, Tadeusz (baritone Joshua Hopkins, debut), and Marta’s friendships with Katya (soprano Kelly Kaduce, debut) and Bronka (mezzo-soprano Liuba Sokolova, debut).
Lyric Opera presentation was made possible also thanks to additional support by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music program. The full list of contributors can be found here.
The Passenger is a coproduction of Bregenzer Festspiele, Austria, Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa Warszawa, English National Opera (ENO), London, and Teatro Real, Madrid.
For tickets and information call (312) 827-5600 or go to lyricopera.org/passenger. Learn more about this production atlyricopera.org/InsidePassenger. Follow the conversation on Twitter: #LyricPassenger.
