Country : Germany Label : Capriccio Genres and styles : Modern Classical Year : 2021

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) – Die Passagierin (The Passenger)

· by Frédéric Cardin

Do you like Shostakovich? You absolutely must listen to the music of his friend and colleague Weinberg, Mieczyslaw by name! The same vibrant energy, the same post-romantic/modern tonal language, with a few perfectly calibrated incursions into an atonality that serves only to magnify the drama, the same lyricism overflowing with melancholy, the same melodic inflections rooted in popular and folk music. All this, however, with a personality of the lesser-known that never fades before the posterity of the more famous.

This recording of the opera Die Passagierin (The Passenger) is an event. We are confronted with a major work, which I would even call essential, in the panorama of the 20th-century repertoire. 

“I will never tire of the pleasure that Weinberg’s La passagere offers me. I have heard it three times, I have studied the score, and each time I have realized even more strongly the beauty and grandeur of this music.”

Dmitri Chostakovitch

The opera, which is quite short, is in two acts and tells the story of Lisa, sailing to Brazil on a transatlantic ship with her husband Walter, in 1959. Lisa encounters a passenger who triggers the repressed memories of the Second World War years. The passenger strangely reminds her of Marta, a prisoner of Auschwitz, the camp where Lisa was a guard. Ghosts from the past reappear in her mind, her unacknowledged but oppressive guilt derails her mind, and her shared responsibility for the horror of that time is projected before the listener in dramatic flashbacks.

The plethora of orchestration (including three bassoons, six horns, saxophone, celesta, guitar, jazz drums, accordion, and more) never descends into unnecessary sonic orgy. Weinberg is a fine musical dramatist and uses his very broad palette as the source of a subtle and delicate, yet emotionally powerful, expressiveness. Here is a drama steeped in sarcasm as much as the dark lyricism of a master storyteller. A few flashes of light, even playfulness, also dot their harmonies here and there.

2010 version, produced in Bregenz:

The soloists are solid and convincing, the orchestra is splendid. You will certainly be interested in a video recording of this opera, made in 2010 in Bregenz and conducted by the dazzling Teodor Currentzis, also indispensable. But the purely audio recording treated here has the advantage of immersing the music lover in Weinberg’s discreet orchestral opulence and the personal drama that transpires in the voices of the soloists. An opera that must imperatively enter the natural repertoire of our lyric temples.  

As I said, it’s essential.

Latest 360 Content

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Sparks – MAD!

Sparks – MAD!

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Subscribe to our newsletter