DVD + Blu-Ray:
The Greek Passion

Martinů’s opera The Greek Passion is a "highlight" of Salzburg Festival (The Times) and the “Best Performance of the Year 2023” at OPER! Awards 2024.

Bohuslav Martinů’s opera The Greek Passion, here in the 1961 version, is based on the novel The re-crucified Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. The opera develops the Christian doctrine of “love thy neighbour” ad absurdum, as a group of refugees are driven out of a little Greek village just as the village is putting on a Passion play for Holy Week. The opera is a pessimistic plea for humanity, made in the awareness that humanity must always wrestle anew with its own egoism. Director Simon Stone “creates a modern parable, somehow both contemporary and timeless.” (The Times)

For the last of his 16 operas, Martinů developed a tonal language which combined his early musical experiences with elements of Greek folklore, Greek Orthodox liturgy and dance music. Maxime Pascal, the 2014 winner of the Salzburg Festival’s annual Young Conductors Award and at the podium of the Wiener Philharmoniker for the first time, “unfolds a musical and dramatic intensity that makes your hair stand on end, both in the tender outbursts and the violent ones. A maestro of his time.” (Le Figaro). “A highlight of this year’s Salzburg Festival” (The Times) and the “Best Performance of the Year 2023” at OPER! Awards 2024. “This opulence and the playing of the overall grippingly coherent ensemble hits one to the core.” (Neue Musikzeitung)

Genre Opera
Composer Bohuslav Martinů
Stage Director Simon Stone
Soloist Gábor Bretz, Sebastian Kohlhepp, Sara Jakubiak, Charles Workman, Christina Gansch, Łukasz Goliński
Choir Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Orchestra / Band Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor Maxime Pascal
Recording location Salzburg Festival, Felsenreitschule
Recording date August 2023
Duration 127 mins
Production Company A co-production of Unitel in cooperation with Wiener Philharmoniker and Salzburg Festival