Powerful Holocaust opera gets haunting Lyric debut
It was extremely moving to see Zofia Posmysz, a 91-year-old Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, join the cast and crew for the opening night curtain call of "The Passenger" at its Lyric Opera of Chicago debut.
Posmysz is the author of the radio play and novel "The Passenger in Cabin 45" that inspired this 1968 Russian opera by Polish-Jewish-born composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) and librettist Alexander Medvedev (1927-2010).
But the significance of Posmysz's Chicago appearance also coincides with the growing emergence of "The Passenger" itself as a major 20th century opera masterwork. Once suppressed by Soviet authorities, "The Passenger" only received its first full stage production in 2010 at the Bregenz Festival in Austria. And it now appears to be gaining a toehold in the standard operatic repertory after subsequent performances in Warsaw, London, Madrid and Houston.
No doubt the rise of "The Passenger" has been aided by British director David Pountney's powerful and visually striking 2010 production, which has been triumphantly imported to Chicago with the U.S. debut of a new multi-language libretto to match the many nationalities of its characters.
"The Passenger" jumps back and forth in time between the 1960s and World War II as it focuses on the memories of Liese Franz (Daveda Karanas), a former overseer at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Aboard a trans-Atlantic liner to Brazil with her unknowing West German diplomat husband, Walter (Brandon Jovanovich), Liese is deeply unsettled when she spies a woman who looks exactly like the Polish prisoner Marta (Gurnee native Amanda Majeski). Liese previously tried to bully and manipulate the defiant Marta - especially when she found out that Marta's artist/musician fiancee Tadeusz (Joshua Hopkins) was also an Auschwitz inmate.
Liese guiltily unburdens her dark past to the agitated Walter, as a series of disturbing and often violent camp scenes play out involving Marta and her fellow prisoners like the beaten Russian partisan Katya (Kelly Kaduce) and the young French prisoner Yvette (Uliana Alexyuk), who forms a bond with the motherly Bronka (Liuba Sokolova) despite their language differences.
Pountney brings a cinematic fluidity to the time and location shifts via the late set designer Johan Engels' ingenious scenery that places the pristine white ocean liner above the hellish gray squalor of the camp, crisscrossed by railroad tracks.
Sir Andrew Davis leads the Lyric Orchestra in a passionate performance of Weinberg's eclectic modern score, which is both astringent and melodically wistful to match the dramatic situations.
The entire casts works as a fully committed ensemble to depict characters wracked with guilt, fear, despair and hope despite insurmountable odds. Majeski and Karanas in particular dig deep into their performances, and they prove worthy dramatic foils despite the power imbalance between their characters.
If there's a complaint to be leveled at "The Passenger," it could be that some audiences will wish for more dramatic tension and a histrionic outburst during the ultimate confrontation between Marta and Liese. But it could be argued that Medvedeva and Weinberg's restraint and subtlety was far more appropriate and equivocal.
"The Passenger" is a musically significant if deeply unsettling work that skillfully tackles a painful subject. But more importantly, the opera will play a part in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive long after the survivors are no longer with us.
“The Passenger”
★ ★ ★ ★
Location: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, (312) 827-5600 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, March 4 and 9; 2 p.m. March 12 and 15. Sung in Polish, German, Russian, French, Yiddish, Greek, Czech and English with projected English translations.
Running time: About three hours with intermission
Tickets: $20-$369
Parking: Area pay garages and some metered street parking
Rating: Onstage violence and serious subject matter