the story of Christ’s Passion was sung during the celebrations of Holy Week, a moment of spiritual communion. Germany’s greatest Baroque composers wrote Passions, which evolved into a veritable oratorio featuring complex dramatisation. Starting with three protagonists – namely Christ, the Evangelist and the crowd – the Passions are enriched by new characters, with numerous arias, expressive recitatives, commentaries and chorales sung with the faithful.
Johann Sebastian Bach probably composed a Passion based on the texts of each of the four Evangelists, but only two admirable ones have survived: The Passion According to St. Matthew Passion and the Passion According to St. John. The latter has a simplicity that goes straight to the heart, brimming with gentleness and piety. Bach was Cantor in Leipzig in 1724 and chose a libretto by the poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes for his celestial music with its intimate, meditative atmosphere. He gave the choir an essential role: that of the hateful crowd surrounding Christ at the crucifixion, but also, in a grandiose finale full of hope, that of the Christians imbued with a deep faith.
Raphaël Pichon and his Baroque ensemble Pygmalion, one of the finest in its field, are teaming up with a prestigious cast for their first performance in Switzerland, to round off the Easter weekend and their tour of Europe’s leading concert halls.
First performance April 7, 1724 at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig
Bertrand Couderc creates the lighting for numerous shows, both in the theater and in the opera. In this field, he collaborates with the greatest stages in the world, such as the Berlin Staastoper, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Bolshoi of Moscow, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan and the Vienna Opera. A regular guest at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, he has performed in Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Patrice Chéreau’s productions in Aix. In 2005, Chéreau asked him to light Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival and at the Opéra national de Paris. This was followed by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at La Scala in Milan under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim, as well as the play La Nuit juste avant les forêts by Bernard-Marie Koltès. Bertrand Couderc lit the last two shows of Luc Bondy, Charlotte Salomon at the Salzburg Festival in 2014 and Ivanov at the Odéon Theatre in 2015. Since 2015, he has been associated with Bartabas and the Académie équestre de Versailles for the choreographies of Davide penitente, Requiem at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg, and recently for Le Sacre du Printemps at the Seine 22 Musicale. In opera and theater, his work has recently been seen in Manon and La Cenerentola at the Opéra national de Paris, Pelléas et Mélisande and Les noces de Figaro at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Anna Bolena at La Scala, Vespro della Beata Vergine at Versailles, La Femme sans ombre at the Vienna Opera, La Vie de Galilée and Angels in America at the Comédie- Française