Enlarge image
Rehearsal scene with the alternative Jesus actor Frederik Mayet: The hippie hair flutters in the wind
Photo: ANDREAS GEBERT / Getty Images
Of course, the heathen spectacle is the most fun.
Shortly before four on Saturday afternoon, real sheep, goats and pigeons appear on the festival stage in Oberammergau, which is set up as the Temple of Jerusalem.
Greedy traders offer their goods for sale in the temple.
Jesus and his followers stroll over, Jesus preaches against godless activity. The Passion Play audience, however, cheers enthusiastically at the crowded stage.
In addition, the May sun shines from the white-blue sky on people and animals, a fresh breeze drives through the treetops above the temple roof, even the hippie hair of the Redeemer and his disciples flutters in the wind.
more on the subject
Inside Oberammergau:»Make room for Jesus«By Katja Thimm
Oh, wonderful and a hosanna of the Bavarian mountains, fauna and godliness: It's finally festival time again in Oberammergau, where in 1634, after a plague epidemic was survived, the suffering of Jesus Christ was re-enacted for the first time.
This year, the Passion Play is taking place for the 42nd time in a theater that can accommodate 4,500 spectators, with only the open-air stage.
Many hundreds of villagers play along.
Among them a lot of children and, in addition to the animals already mentioned, two camels, a rooster, a donkey and various horses.
And yet the show as a whole is serious business.
In 2022, the Passion Play will show a main character who makes war its main theme.
"You take the people's sons and send them to your wars," the imperialist Romans are furiously accused of in one of the evening's nicely arranged mass scenes.
A little earlier, the man who played Jesus in the premiere, whose name is Rochus Rückel, says with pathos in his voice: "Keep the peace!" And: "Whoever raises the sword will die by the sword." In general, it seems as if the cancellation is on the idea that peace can be achieved by force of arms, the most important message of this year's Passion Play - not likely to win a majority in Germany at the moment.
The director wants a »loud« Jesus
For the festival guest who, like me, wants to give himself the full premiere package, the day begins with a service in the Passion Theater at eleven in the morning.
The festival director Christian Stückl has invited the Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba from South Africa, who praises the Lord in English.
The Catholic Cardinal Reinhard Marx speaks about the war in the Ukraine, as does the Evangelical Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm.
Bedford-Strohm says that one should not bless weapons even in war, because: »Weapons can never create peace«.
Instead of an altar, the people of Oberammergau have set up a large crown of thorns decorated with roses in the middle of the stage.
From half past two in the afternoon, a huge ensemble of women and men, wearing leather slippers and waving palm branches, reenacts the jubilation of the Jerusalemites as the Redeemer enters the city.
The Jesus of the Oberammergau Festival, which actually takes place every ten years and can now be seen two years later because of the corona pandemic, is “a little louder” than previous passion heroes, festival director Stückl said shortly before the premiere.
"Because he yells at the world as it is and because it won't change."
In fact, the Christ actor, Rückel, appears from the start as if he were being driven by a considerable inner anger, as if the motto of the festival this time was: Jesus trembles.
His disciples are a bunch of revolutionaries urging him to set himself up as ruler of the land of Israel;
their leader says, "I will not argue." The chief priests reviled Jesus as a foreigner and a false prophet;
but he defies them by no means particularly gently, but stubbornly and extremely taciturnly.
From the state of the world and the people, who first cheer him and later roar and wish him on the cross, this Jesus seems to have long since drawn the only logical conclusion for himself.
It is the same one he issues in the temple as a command to the unbelievers: "Get away from here!"
The director, Stückl, who is 60 years old and is directing for the fourth time, has erased the anti-Semitic slogans and typifications from the Passion Play.
On stage, the disciples consistently address their leader as “Rabbi”, Jesus himself proclaims the praise of God in Hebrew at the last supper.
Judas is played by a Muslim: Cengiz Görür, who is studying at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich, proves to be a glowingly committed professional actor in the course of the performance among many amateur actors.
In any case, the art of directing in Stückl's Passion does not necessarily consist of subtle character drawings, but of bold wide-screen painting: the furious crowds and the Old Testament Bible chapters recreated in living state scenes show his special talent.
The passion used to be played in the village cemetery
Incidentally, the people of Oberammergau originally performed the passion play directly in the village cemetery above the freshly scratched graves of the plague victims.
And perhaps the spectacle would still be a gloomy and at times deadly boring affair if it weren't for the sometimes exciting, sometimes lyrically voluptuous music.
It comes largely from the composer Rochus Dedler (1779-1822), who was trained in Haydn and Mozart, and was polished by Markus Zwink, the current Music Director of the Festival.
His work has been just as important for the success of the whole festival as that of Stückl.
The vocal soloists and the chorus singers always act on an equal footing with the acting staff in the picturesquely arranged bustle of the stage.
It's a big festival that is celebrated almost all day on Saturday in Oberammergau.
During a long break in the late afternoon, there will be a reception with guests from the show business and politics.
In addition to Uschi Glas and Eckhart von Hirschhausen, these also include the Bavarian head of state, Markus Söder, who is famous for his carnival fun.
From eight o'clock in the evening the fun is over for another two and a half hours and you can marvel at the suffering of a prince of peace in a brutalized world on the festival stage.
Their fierce villain is robed in black like all the Romans in Jerusalem, is called Pontius Pilate and is played by Carsten Lück: a cold power man who boasts about liquidating his enemies and who is almost inevitably marked as a stubborn Putinish maniac.
Sometimes it seems almost caricature-like how the Roman ruffian roars and stomps while his counterpart Jesus falls more and more into a resentful silence, lets himself be bloodily scourged and pinned to the cross.
When he died a martyr's death up on high, those who remained stared up at the crucified one in bewilderment, as if asking themselves: what the hell ruined the world like this?
The answer was formulated earlier in the day by the apostle Simon: "War is a wicked beast!"
Oberammergau Passion Play
.
Until October 2, 2022;
Game days Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
