BWW Reviews: THE PASSENGER Makes Welcome Stopover at the Park Avenue Armory and Lincoln Center Festival

The Houston Grand Opera's brilliant production of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's THE PASSENGER, directed by David Pountney, was a stunning visitor to the Park Avenue Armory last week as a coproduction with the Lincoln Center Festival. It's not an easy experience, but well worth the effort.

After "Schindler's List" "Life is Beautiful" and numerous other films over the last couple of decades, I made a vow to myself that I'd had my fill of Holocaust-themed works. They were harrowing to watch, no matter what uplifting tales of courage they told or how poignant the personal stories. I felt I needed no further reminders of this terrible piece of history, no matter how artfully presented. I'd seen my first music-filled work about a concentration camp years earlier, Arthur Miller's TV adaptation of "Playing for Time," based on Fania Fenelon's autobiography, which had a shattering performance by Vanessa Redgrave. Other films followed, including "Au Revoir les Enfants" and "Lacombe Lucien."

Still, after reading about the opera after its premiere in Houston last January, I found myself drawn to the work, adapted from the novel by Zofia Posmysz by Alexander Medvedev and translated into English by the director.

After attending the opening performance in New York, it's hard to imagine it anywhere but New York's cavernous Park Avenue Armory, which is so well suited to the multi-tiered set: on top, the stark white steamship cruising toward Brazil in the 1960s; below, the concentration camp at Auschwitz, at the height of World War II, where the memory play took place, with its shifting scenery moving on tracks like the boxcars that transported detainees to their death. The stadium seating used in the hall felt like a tidal wave about to crush down on the ship. While the expansive space necessitated amplification, it didn't detract from the score's power or from its intracacies that ranged from jazz to Shostakovitch-like atonalities, thanks to the efforts of conductor Patrick Summers and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra.

The story itself is rather straightforward. A German diplomat and his wife, Liese, are on their way to Brazil, where he has been posted. While they are relaxing on deck, Liese sees a passenger who she thinks she recognizes--Marta, a Polish prisoner in Auschwitz, where the woman had served as an overseer, a non-military facilitator between the prisoners and the Nazis in charge of the camp. The passenger is mute for much of the production and her face is covered by a sheer scarf, so it is really impossible for her to be recognized, but Liese becomes convinced it is, indeed, Marfa.

The scenes alternate between the increasing tension of life on the boat for Liese and Walter and cruel scenes in the death camp. It is interesting that the story chooses to concentrate on Liese and her husband Walter--who knew nothing of his wife's sordid past before the appearance of the passenger--to show their selfishness and insensitivity, as much as on the horrific life of the prisoners of the camp. The couple does not necessarily show remorse for what they've done but concern about how it might affect their lives (will he have to resign his diplomatic post?). Liese might feel guilty about her actions as an overseer, but it doesn't seem to occur to her that "I was only following orders" doesn't excuse her behavior.

The opera was strongly cast. South African mezzo Michelle Breedt, who premiered the role of Liese in the opera's first production in Bregenz, Austria, in 2010 (the composer died in 1996), showed a gleaming clarion sound and completely gave herself over to the self-delusions of the role. Canadian tenor Joseph Kaiser was all self-absorption as Walter, more annoyed that his wife has lied about her past than horrified about the truth of it. Yet, he reveals this more in his performance than through the music, which doesn't quite know how to treat him.

The most soaring music, however goes to soprano Melody Moore as Marta, whose bright voice and honest portrayal of the prisoner, defiant and proud, no matter how much Liese and the envisionment tries to take it away from her. As Marta's fiancé Tadeusz, baritone Morgan Smith shares some of the opera's most heartfelt music with a resonant voice and thoughtful portrayal.

Among the other standouts in the cast were Victoria Livengood as Old Woman, and Kelly Kaduce as Katya, Kathryn Day as Bronka (an older prisoner frequently praying to Jesus) and Natalya Romaniw as Krystyna (who no longer sees the point of prayer).

Conductor Summers drew a rich and thrusting performance of the challenging score with marvelous work from the Chorus and Orchestra of the Houston Grand Opera (the orchestra was off to the right side, separated from the set), that was sensible and sensitive to the ear.

The composer didn't live to hear his score performed, but this performance at Lincoln Center Festival would surely have made him proud.

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Photo by Stephanie Berger

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