Word: passione
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cash and controversy over a Passion play...
...Passion zahlt's" (The Passion will pay for it), people like to say in Oberammergau. And, indeed, the famous Oberammergau Passion Play, first performed in the picture-postcard Bavarian hamlet back in 1634, has kept the local economy humming for much of the 20th century. It is a six-hour production, put on for a four-month run every ten years with a cast of 800. A quarter of the town (pop. 4,800) takes part, working as stagehands, orchestra members, singing away in the huge chorus, or milling about as Roman soldiers or members of Jewish crowds. Many...
...since the Nazi Holocaust, the play has been a source of controversy as well as cash. Jews and liberal Christians alike have charged the play with antiSemitism. The recounting of Christ's Passion, though it is drawn from the New Testament, embroiders considerably upon the biblical accounts. The florid script, rewritten from older versions in 1860 by Parish Priest Joseph Alois Daisenberger, fixed blame for the Crucifixion totally upon the Sanhedrin and the Jewish rabble, which amateur actors portrayed with much shaking of angry fists and fiendish cries for Jesus' blood. After the Second Vatican Council declared...
...this year's show, Oberammergau reformers thought they could solve the problem by replacing the Daisenberger play with an older and less passionate Passion text written by Father Ferdinand Rosner of the nearby Ettal Monastery and first performed in 1750. Rosner's allegory-laden verses blame the whole tragedy on the Devil. The "Rosnerites" raised cash for a 1977 trial production. Critics loved the show, but the villagers missed their old familiar lines, scenes and songs from the Daisenberger version. In the 1978 election of the village council, the "Daisenbergers" won and promptly scheduled the usual Passion text...
Despite these criticisms, half a million tourists are expected to flock to the village this summer. And the mountain folk of Oberammergau are unlikely soon to give up their Passion. Says a Roman soldier in the cast: "We have acted in this play as children. We have sung in the choir and lived with the text all our lives. We shall not abandon it because some people in New York and fancy art critics think Rosner is better. This is our play. They can't take it away from...