Moisey Weinberg

THE PASSENGER

Opera in two acts

premiere

Epiphany festival at Novaya Opera

Music Director Jan Latham-Koenig

Choirmaster Yulia Senyukova

Recommended for 12+

Synopsis

The opera is set on two levels: the upper level depicts the deck of an ocean liner after the Second World War where a German couple, Liese and Walter (a West German diplomat on his way with his new wife to a new diplomatic posting), are sailing to Brazil. The wife, Liese, thinks she recognises a Polish woman on board, Marta, as a former inmate of Auschwitz where she, unknown to her husband, was a camp guard. The second lower level develops below the liner deck, depicting the concentration camp. The opera is an interplay between the two levels.

Act 1

Scene 1 : Walter and his wife Liese are on their way to a new life in Brazil where Walter will take up a diplomatic post. During the journey, Liese is struck by the appearance of a passenger she sees indistinctly. The passenger reminds her of an inmate in Auschwitz over whom she once presided and knows for certain to be dead. In shock, she reveals her hitherto undisclosed wartime past to her husband.

Scene 2 : In the concentration camp, Liese and her superior overseer discuss the need to manipulate prisoners and find one amongst each group who can be manipulated to lead the others easily. The male officers drink and sing about how there is nothing to do but how they are less likely to die than fighting on the front against the Russians.

Scene 3 : The women of the camp are introduced and each tells of their background and origins. A Russian woman is bought in having been beaten and tortured and the Kapo in charge discovers a note which may cost her her life. Marta is selected by Liese to translate to Liese but deliberately makes it out to be a love letter from her partner Tadeusz, with whom she arrived into incarceration, but has not seen these past two years. Liese believes the subterfuge. As the scene closes Liese and Walter are seen on the boat in the present time trying to come to terms with Liese's newly uncovered past.

Act 2

Scene 1 : Belongings of murdered prisoners are being sorted by the women when an officer arrives to demand a violin so that the Kommandant may have his favourite waltz rendered to him by a prisoner. The prisoner Tadeusz is sent to collect the violin and arrives to discover his fiancée Marta there. Their reunion is overseen by Liese who decides to try and manipulate their relationship so that she may more easily control Marta for her own purposes in more readily exerting control over all the women.

Scene 2: Tadeusz is in his prison workshop fashioning jewellery for the officers' private demands. In a pile of his sketches, Liese recognises the face of Marta. Liese tries to get Tadeusz to do her bidding also, but seeing that this would leave him indebted to Liese, he declines although essentially this will cost him his life now.

Scene 3 : It is Marta's birthday and she sings a lengthy aria to Death itself. Liese tells Marta that Tadeusz refused her offer and that it will cost him dear, but Marta understands Tadeusz's stance. The women sing more about what they will do when they return home after the war, although it is obvious to most that they will never return alive. There is a death-house selection, and the women are all led away as their numbers are called. Marta resignedly follows although she has not been selected for death. Liese stops her from joining the others and taunts her that her time will come shortly so there is no need to hurry. Liese's final taunt is that she will live to see Tadeusz's final concert before he is too sent to the death-house as a result of her report.

Scene 4 : In the present time on the boat, Walter and Liese are still unsure as to whether the mystery woman whose appearance has so upset Liese is really Marta. The porter Liese earlier bribed to discover the woman's identity only revealed that she was British. He now returns to add that although she is travelling on a British passport, she is not English and is on deck reading a Polish book. Walter offers to confront the mystery woman to set Liese's mind at rest before they both decide they are letting their minds run away with themselves. They both resolve to ascend to the salon to join the dancing. Liese dances whilst her husband talks to another passenger. The mystery woman is seen passing a play-request to the band leader. The band then play the same tune that was once the camp Kommandant's favourite waltz. This musical coincidence and the still unknown identity of the passenger further convinces Liese that Marta is somehow alive and on the boat. Liese is reduced to terror and shrinks from sight of the still unrevealed mystery passenger retreating from her backwards down the stairs of the liner into the horrors of Tadeusz's final moments.

Scene 5 : Tadeusz is dragged before the Kommandant to provide him with his favourite waltz music. Instead he plays the Chaconne from Bach's Partita for Violin No. 2, making a defiant purely musical protest at the Kommandant about the descent from culture into depravity the camp represents. Thus he deprives Liese of her plan to have him executed via her report and deprives the Kommandant of his illusion that he can force people to play him his favourite music under pain of death. Tadeusz seals his own fate and, his violin being smashed, he is dragged off to his death. All the while, Liese observes the scene whilst still in her ballgown.

Epilogue : The stage becomes completely empty apart from Liese still in her ballgown who slumps down sitting to the rear silently. Marta enters. She is observed to be wearing non-prisoncamp clothing and with her hair unshaven. She sings that the dead should never be forgotten and they can never forgive. Liese can only observe, unable to have Marta change her attitude and provide her the closure she selfishly craves. The scene fades away musically as does the light and the opera ends very quietly in total darkness.

At no point in the opera is the mystery woman on the boat confirmed as Marta nor does Liese or anyone ever interact with her on the boat and discover her to be Marta. Liese's vehement certainty that Marta died in the camp is never contradicted. Even in the final scene which is designed to seem ambiguous, there is nothing at all to confirm that Marta was anything apart from dead, with Liese craving deliverance from her past with the dead unable to provide it.

Following a beautiful unknown girl, whom he accidentally had met in Madrid, the Count Almaviva arrived in Seville under a name of Lindoro. His servant Fiorello managed to find out the girl’s address. To entice Rosina from the house the Count sings her a serenade at night, but all his efforts are in vain… The Count pays off musicians.

The barber Figaro recently moved in Siviglia, enjoying wide popularity here. By chance he is brought together with his former master – Almaviva. Fortunately to the Barber the Count, as it turned out, is in love with Dr. Bartolo’s ward – Rosina, and in this situation a person who can enter Doctor’s house may be extremely useful!

Meanwhile Bartolo is away for a short while. A new serenade by “Lindoro” turns out to be more successful than the first one. The Count demands from Figaro to bring him in to Bartolo’s house. To this the Barber suggests him to pretend to be a drunken soldier. After that he gives a long and confused explanation about his address in Seville, but without success, as it seems. Sums, promised by the Count for his service, makes Figaro to give himself up to rosy dreams…  

Second scene

Rosina is ready to run away with a splendid “Lindoro”, but how to do that? To write a letter! Figaro, as usual, comes to offer his services to Rosina, but she has no time to say a word about the letter as he disappears, hearing Doctor’s steps.

Bartolo suspects that Figaro has come on purpose. He has heard that his ward is noticed by the Count Almaviva and intends without delay to make Rosina his wife tonight. A patient, that has come to him, a military musician Don Basilio, works up a strategy of the battle: first, to defame an enemy spitefully, second, immediately to make a marriage contract between Rosina and Bartolo. Their conversation is overheard by Figaro: the girl should hurry up, if she does not like to marry her guardian! Rosina gives the letter to the Barber, but Dr Bartolo is already here and sets a trap to her, trying to catch her. The Count disguised as a drunken soldier bursts into the house and tries to hand a letter to Rosina. A fight begins between the Count and Bartolo. A noise draws attention of a military patrol. After hearing to confused explanations from all who are present, the Officer takes a decision to arrest the “soldier”. After a short talk with a perspective prisoner tкte­a­tкte, he changes his decision. Nobody understands anything.

SECOND ACT  

First scene

The Count again penetrates Bartolo’s house under a new mask to find a way to Rosina’s heart. Disguised as Don Alonso, a faithful pupil of supposedly ill Don Basilio, he gives the girl a singing lesson. Rosina performs an aria from a popular opera “La Fille mal gardйe”. Old Bartolo does not approve of modern music.

Figaro comes to shave the Doctor so that the lovers could talk without trouble. Suddenly Don Basilio comes… A sum of money helps to diagnose scarlatina with him and to suggest an idea to him to return home and receive medical treatment. Rosina is going to escape with Almaviva at midnight, but Bartolo again suspects of something and casts reproaches upon her. The servant Berta, who has got tired of strange quarrels and shouts, dreams about love…  

Second scene

Dr. Bartolo and Don Basilio work up a plot: it’s necessary to convince Rosina, that Lindoro has another lover and he is an agent sent to kidnap the girl for the Count Almaviva. Rosina agrees to the immediate marriage to Bartolo. At midnight sharp the Count appears, but Rosina meets her “Lindoro” not the way that he has expected. To become reconciled with the girl Almaviva is forced to reveal his real name. The time for escape is missed; Basilio, the Notary and then Bartolo appear. Rosina’s kidnapping is cancelled. The Count has at once to marry lawfully in presence of all witnesses.