A PATHBREAKING AND SPLENDID ‘THE PASSENGER’ FROM UBC OPERA

Mieczysław Weinberg, THE PASSENGER: David Gibbons (Walter), Leila Kirves (Lisa), Catherine Thornsley (Marta), Luka Kawabata (Tadeusz), UBC Opera Ensemble, members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, David Agler (conductor), Nancy Hermiston (director), Alessia Carpoca (set design), Chan Centre, January 30, 2020.

There are few neglected modern composers whose star has risen more in recent years than Polish/Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), a friend of Dmitri Shostakovich. Yet many opera companies would probably wish to stick to safer productions than to delve into the little-known world of the composer’s operatic ventures. Hats off therefore to the courage and vision of Nancy Hermiston and her fine UBC opera troupe in staging the composer’s powerful and original The Passenger (1967/68). The setting examined is both brutally painful and poignant: the concentration camps of World War II, where the ‘passenger’ embodies the haunting memories that everyone carries with them into the future, whether they be survivor or captor. Weinberg’s masterpiece has begun slowly making the rounds of international operatic stages and should take its rightful place alongside Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Prokofiev’s War and Peace as one of the great Soviet operas of the twentieth century. The commitment and intelligence of the present UBC student production served the composer admirably: the work emerges as positively shattering in its emotional force.

Alexander Medvedev’s libretto is adapted from the radio play Passenger from Cabin 45 by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz, based on her own experiences during the Holocaust. The story concerns a German couple, Walter and Lisa, who are on a transatlantic voyage bound for South America. Lisa, a former SS officer and Auschwitz concentration camp guard, believes she recognizes a fellow passenger as Marta, one of the Polish prisoners who had been under her charge at the camp. The identity of the Polish woman on the ship is never firmly established, but Lisa is sufficiently alarmed by her resemblance to Marta that she begins to confess the details of her past to her husband. The opera unfolds on two levels, with the upper part of the stage representing the ocean liner deck where a horrified Walter listens to his wife’s ghastly narration, while on the lower part of the stage life at the concentration camp unfolds in all its nightmarish brutality.

The singing of the UBC students was excellent, with no apparent weak link in the cast. Pride of place must go to mezzo-soprano Leila Kirves for her multi-layered performance as the conflicted Lisa, a woman at once nasty and unlikeable but also tormented by her past and terrified of discovery. Though the audience does not sympathize with her, by the end of the opera they are moved to understand how a young woman, blinded by love of the fatherland, could be brainwashed into committing unspeakable crimes. Kirves wisely played the character as a potentially flawed human being rather than as a monster, and her admirably wide range of vocal and dramatic expression were put to good use in differentiating her respective roles in the cruise ship and concentration camp scenes. As her husband Walter, tenor David Gibbons coped heroically with the sustained high tessitura of the part and managed to inject genuine ardor and tenderness into the role, well-aided by his beautifully steady tone.

Soprano Catherine Thornsley brought great conviction and dignity to the role of Marta. Far from portraying her as a mere suffering heroine, Thornsley emphasized the character’s resourcefulness, defiance and compassion, and her duets with Tadeusz (sung with exquisite nobility by baritone Luka Kawabata) provided some of the finest moments of lyrical pathos of the evening. All the minor figures of the drama, from the female prisoners to the SS officers, were clearly etched and characterized, and the ensemble as a whole managed brilliantly to navigate the multitude of Western, Central and Eastern European languages of the libretto.

Weinberg’s music is basically tonal and melodic, though he is able to summon a good measure of dissonance and harshness when the situation demands it. His rhythms often have a propulsive energy, such as the pounding timpani quintuplets that open the work and return as a leitmotif whenever he needs to underscore the savagery taking place on the lower level of the stage. Echoes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich are not difficult to discern, particularly in the deliberately banal-sounding dance tunes, the dissonant counterpoint and polytonal harmonies, and the use of muted brass and shrieking piccolo in the orchestration, but Weinberg is no epigone. The music frequently evinces a lyrical warmth entirely his own, most evident in the tender scenes between Marta and her young fiancé, Tadeusz. In addition to the trivial dance melodies in the orchestra, there are some effective pieces for the chorus, notably the hauntingly atmospheric laments (in several languages) for male and female prisoners. Finally, the quotation of Bach’s D minor Chaconne for violin, at the moment when Tadeusz is ordered to play the Commandant’s favorite waltz, makes for a powerful musical and dramatic climax to the second act.

The members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, living up to their reputation as the most flexible and best-disciplined orchestra in the city, gave a colorful and vivid reading of Weinberg’s score without ever overwhelming the voices. Maestro David Agler did a superb job of supporting the singers and eliciting orchestral playing that was a model of alertness, balance and sensitivity. Every aspect of the staging was clearly conceived with meticulous care and loving attention to detail. The gestures, deportment and movement of the cast were characterized by simplicity and directness; the action was realistic but never descended into sensationalism. The sets and costumes gave the impression of authenticity and appropriateness to the place and period, and the stark contrast between the posh complacency of the cruise ship scenes and the hellishness of the concentration camp was effective without being overstated. Lighting was used with resourcefulness and subtlety.

In virtually all respects – singing, acting, stage direction and set design – the present production of Weinberg’s The Passenger compares favorably with what we are used to seeing in professional productions. The performance will linger long in the minds of those of us fortunate to have experienced it.