Back in 2010 Weinberg was a name know only to a group of enthusiasts. David Pountney’s production of this Auschwitz opera changed it all. After the world stage premiere of The Passenger at the Bregenz Festival in Austria, Weinberg was duly recognised as a major 20th-century composer. The Passenger is based on a story by the Polish writer Zofia Posmysz, who was an Auschwitz survivor. The original Russian-language libretto by Alexander Medvedev was transformed into a multilingual version, which you can hear on this album (Pountney rightly noted that it would be strange to see onstage Nazi officers barking in Russian to a mainly German-speaking audience in Bregenz). This production travelled to many places, including Warsaw, London, Tel Aviv, New York and Chicago, where in 2014 I heard several of the singers appearing on this album. Pountney’s Passenger had its much-delayed final stop at the Teatro Real in Madrid in March 2024 (first the theatre’s former Artistic Director Gerard Mortier for some reason did not want to show it, then it was delayed by Covid). A video recording of this last run is available online at Stage+. (In fact it is the second video recording of this production; the first, from Bregenz, was released by Neos on DVD/Blu ray in 2011, later reissued by Arthaus.)

The audio recording from Madrid is available from DG as a stream-only album. It is a pity there is no booklet available in any form, as – even if you understand all the languages of the libretto, including German, Russian, Polish and French, but do not know the opera very well – it is practically impossible to follow the story. The recording has the flavour of a live performance in a theatre, as emotions are running high but at times the tempos seem surprisingly slow: they reflect the requirements of a big stage where singers have to move. Overall, Mirga GraŽinytė-Tyla has an in-depth understanding of Weinberg’s music and creates a very powerful interpretation, leading a huge ensemble with a very strong cast. Amanda Majeski’s Marta was already excellent in 2014, when I heard her in Chicago. The role has grown with her, as has Daveda Karanas’s Lisa. Nikolai Schukoff as Walter finds the perfect balance between acting and singing, thus displaying the dubious moral character of this ‘West German diplomat’ (you cannot stop thinking of what he had been doing before entering the world of diplomacy). Gyula Orendt is a convincing Tadeusz (and I do appreciate the effort he makes to pronounce Polish correctly, but still miss Artur Ruciński’s idiomatic Polish from the Bregenz video recording). Towards the end of the opera, Tadeusz, who is a violinist (doubled on stage by Stephen Waarts), performs Bach’s Chaconne before he is killed, as if – as Pountney had it – he wanted to throw this pinnacle of holy German art in the face of the Nazis. Before you listen to this recording, please be advised: it will batter your heart.