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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

VenueWiener Konzerthaus
CalendarTue 06 Apr 2027
Synopsis/Details

An Opera Against Forgetting

A transatlantic ocean liner in the late 1950s is sailing to Brazil. In Mieczysław Weinberg's opera The Passenger, Lisa, a former concentration camp guard, is confronted by her past. Fifteen years after the war, she unexpectedly encounters Marta aboard the ship—a woman who survived the concentration camp against all odds. While passengers dance on deck, flashbacks bring the horrors of camp life vividly back to life.

 

A Masterpiece of Modern Opera

Born in Warsaw in 1919, Weinberg lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He escaped by fleeing to the Soviet Union, where he found both an artistic advocate and a defender against arbitrary state persecution in Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich also championed Weinberg's opera The Passenger, completed in 1968 and regarded by the composer as his masterpiece. Despite these efforts, censorship prevented its performance, and it was not premiered until 2010 in Bregenz. In the score, Weinberg quotes works such as Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne for solo violin while seamlessly blending folk music, jazz, and atonal elements. Shostakovich summed it up: "I regard The Passenger as a hymn to those who stood up to the most terrible evil in the world—fascism."

 

A Musical Memorial

The City of Birmingham Orchestra & Choir, under the direction of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, now present this masterpiece of modern opera in a concert performance featuring an outstanding cast of soloists. Sung in German, Polish, Czech, Yiddish, French, and English, it stands as a powerful musical memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

Cast

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus

Iurii Samoilov: Tadeusz (Baritone)
Adrienn Miksch: Marta (Soprano)
Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie: Katja (Soprano)
Lidia Vinyes Curtis: Krzystina (Mezzo-soprano)
Marta Fontanals-Simmons: Vlasta (Mezzo-soprano)
Shay Bloch: Hannah (Contralto)
Olivia Doray: Ivette (Soprano)
Helen Field: Old Woman (Soprano)
Liuba Sokolova: Bronka (Contralto)
Daveda Karanas: Lisa (Mezzo-soprano)
Nikolai Schukoff: Walter (Tenor)
Géraldine Dulex: Chief Guard / Kapo (Speaker)
Albert Casals: SS Guard (Tenor)
Marcell Bakonyi: SS Guard (Bass)
Hrólfur Sæmundsson: SS Guard (Bass)
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla: Conductor

 

Program

Mieczysław Weinberg

The Passenger (Passazhirka). Opera in two acts, eight scenes, and an epilogue, Op. 97 (1968)

Concert performance in German, Polish, Czech, Yiddish, French, and English.

Venue
Wiener Konzerthaus

The Wiener Konzerthaus ( Vienna Concert House or Hall) is one of the largest and most artistically progressive institutions in international musical life. During the course of a season, which extends from September to June, some 750 wide-ranging events take place and more than 600,000 visitors can listen to around 2,500 different compositions. With this comprehensive and varied selection, the Wiener Konzerthaus – together with the Vienna State Opera House and the Musikverein – is central to Vienna’s reputation as one of the world’s leading music capitals.

From its earliest days, the Wiener Konzerthaus has held the highest cultural aims and artistic mission: «To act as a venue for the cultivation of fine music, as a meeting point for artistic endeavour, as a home for music and a cultural centre for Vienna». It was in this spirit that the Konzerthaus was inaugurated on 19 October 1913 with a festive concert attended by Emperor Francis Joseph I. To mark the occasion, Richard Strauss wrote the «Festliches Präludium op. 61», which was followed by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This programme combination, comprising a contemporary work and a masterpiece from the past, served as a model for the Wiener Konzerthaus’s future direction: today, too, an awareness of tradition and the joys of innovation form the main pillars of the Konzerthaus’s artistic identity.

 

Access to the Wiener Konzerthaus

 

Public transport:


Short walk from the U4 Stadtpark Station: 10 min walk from the U4/U1 Karlsplatz Station, or take the 4A bus.

From the tram and bus stops at Schwarzenbergplatz, accessed by D, 2 & 71 trams and 3A & 4A buses. The 4a bus stop is at Hotel Am Konzerthaus.

Taxi:
The nearest taxi stands are at the Hotel Intercontinental in the Johannesgasse and at Hotel Am Konzerthaus on the Heumarkt.

Restaurants next to:

Gmoakeller

Hotels in immediate vicinity:

Hotel am Konzerthaus and Intercontinental

 

Great Hall

In the heart of the building (which consists of more than 600 rooms) lies the Konzerthaus’s flagship, the Grosser Saal (Great Hall). Designed with a sense of space and classical balance, its stage has provided the setting for many memorable concerts over the years. In this room, artists, audiences and atmosphere blend into a harmonious triad.


Home to world-famous orchestras, virtuoso soloists, renowned conductors and legendary jazz musicians, the Great Hall can accommodate an audience of 1,800 and offers the perfect venue for a wide variety of musical activity. The Great Hall has emerged from the major renovation with renewed splendour and, despite improvements in technical installation and audience comfort has continued to conserve its original elegance. Its unique atmosphere ideally lends itself to the broad range of artistic activities offered by the Vienna Konzerthaus.

 

Mozart Hall

Open and relaxing, welcoming and intimate, with its incomparable appeal, the Mozart Hall constitutes a jewel of international musical life. The perfect setting for all types of chamber music, from lute and Lieder recitals to string quartets and chamber orchestras, it can accommodate an audience of around 700 – an ideal size in which to experience the intimacy of chamber music and recital performances.

The Mozart Hall enjoys world-wide acclaim on account of its unique acoustics. This distinction makes it a top favourite with leading ensembles and soloists – as well as a popular venue for recordings. This was taken into account during the major renovation of the building: as with all other rooms in the Konzerthaus, the Mozart Hall is directly linked to a recording studio and a technical control room.
 

Schubert Hall

 

With its festive character, the Schubert-Saal presents the perfect model of a music salon, the restored use of the windows follwing the renovation having returned the room to its elegant, airy appearance.

Equipped with around 320 seats, it lends itself to a wide range of chamber-music concerts, as well as to receptions, dinners and lectures. It is home to the popular lunchtime concert series, as well as to events which enable promising young musicians to experience a professional concert stage. Many a musical career has been launched in the Schubert Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus.
 

Seating capacity: 320
Auditorium: 240 m²
Podium: 50 m²

 

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