Oberammergau Passion Play

Introduction

2008-03-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

Oberammergau is a Mysterium. But the facts, which constitute the passion play, are still strangely enough. The origin and the further development of the passion play are a part of German history, in political and in artistic regard. This is reflected in the text versions of the passion and in addition in the changes of the scenery, the costumes, the music, theatre architecture and the fellow players.

Baroque

2008-03-28T05:09:00.000-07:00

1750 the Oberammergauer passion play was completely recreated and reaches with it its literary zenith. Ferdinand Rosner, „poeta doctus ” [1] and professor of the rhetoric at the academy of knight's created the ‚Passio Nova ‘ with the title ‚Bitter suffering, winning death and glorious resurrection of the confirmed son of God father introduced to the congregation... ‘ [2]. Nearly at the same time the Epos ‚Der Messiahs’ by Klopstock's was published.[3]. Literally the new passion is of equal value to Klopstocks opus. [4] this passion corresponded stylistically as well as formally to the artistic claims and the attitude to life of the baroque. The plot which is based on the new testament is subdivided into nine acts all of them are instigated by a ‚living picture‘.

This form of pictures Rosner adopted from the old passion und developed them to 18 prefigurations. With these living pictures situations were taken from the old testament. He creates more than 90 roles which arise partly logically from the new testament. The figure of the devil and to this provided the allegorical figures of the vice, the stinginess, the envy, the death, the desperation and the sin, he adopts from the old play, however, in contrast to prior, he now let them directly intervene into the play.

Possibly inspired by the Weilheimer passion [5], Rosner adds to his play a protective mind, the ‚Genius Passionis ‘ which is accompanied of six other protective minds. This group, which is in opposite to the diabolical powers, forms the origin of the today's big choir. [6]

Rosner has written the dialogs as well as chanted texts into cadenced language. These arias and recitatives, whose music has got lost, corresponded to the Italian opera taste of the time. All in all the text encloses 8455 verses [7]. Oberammergau, up to now only one passion play under many, became the model for other passion plays, for example: Tölz, Freising, Dachau, Kiefersfelden, Oberaudorf, Thiersee and Erl[8].

Classical- and Romantic Period

2008-03-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

1830 and 1839 the local government of Oberammergau asked at the government of Upper Bavaria for the occupation of the vicarage by Josef Alois Daisenberger without success. Finally in June, 1845 Daisenberger was moved from Uffing, where he was since 1832, to Oberammergau. If the third petition was the reason for this success is not sure. The Oberammergauer define in it their expectations on Daisenberger quite clearly: „ he will act beneficial... as excellent teacher for our children, with his artistic sense on our industry, with apprenticeship and example on our spiritual welfare, and with right dignity on the passion play. [1]
1799 Alois Daisenberger was born in Oberau, which lies only few kilometres from the cloister of Ettal and also from Oberammergau. From 1804 he visited the lessons with father Otmar Weiss. [2] In October, 1812 he inscribed into the high school [3] of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Munich, which he concluded in summer, 1816. From 1817 to 1820 Daisenberger studied at the Landshuter university, which was strongly influenced by the most stamping figure Johann Michael Sailer. From 1820 he teached the children in his home town.
In October, 1821 he gets the ordination of priests. The Primiz mass took place in Oberau, father Othmar Weis held the sermon and Rochus Dedler composed the mass.
After different stations in different municipalities in Bavaria, in 1845 he finally achieved his purpose. „Since my youth I had a special predilection for Oberammergau. As a child every year I fully of longing looked forward to the “Kirchweihe” of Oberammergau; as a studying youth I experienced there very pleasant hours; in my first priest's years it was the last purpose of my wishes in respect on the place of my work: To become a priest in Oberammergau;” [4]
The People of Oberammergau entrust him with the direction of the passion play and the revision of the text. 1850 the revision was limited only to cancelations and low linguistic changes.
1850 starts a cultural-historical adoption strongly influenced by Martin Deutinger [6] and by the director and theatrical historian Eduard Devrient [7] which sees Oberammergau as a national inheritance of idealised Middle Ages. At the same time also critics in artistic regard were being raised. Also the government of Bavaria demands a treatment of the text. On the 21st December, 1858 Priest Daisenberger announced to the government that the draught of the passion for 1860 was finished.

The treatment of the passion in 1860 [9] was strongly stamped by the classical tragedy and used like these antique elements. Instead of the actualisation he placed general validity, instead of realism he placed sublimity and idealisation, instead of the political elements he placed psychological elements. Bound to the spirit of the times of the romanticism Daisenberger inserted legendary scenes to the play again, works with a pictorial language, and interprets the passiom drama as a fight between light and darkness. [11] Daisenberger juggles in nearly post modern manner with literary figures and style elements. He utilizes irony, which was very much popular in the romanticism. So he allows to pronounce the opponents of Jesus over and over again Christian truth which mean this, actually, in the reverse sense, as for example: „Only by the death of Jesus of Nazareth the people of Israel can be saved.” Or: „His death is our welfare.” [12] Daisenberger shapes the opponents of Jesus with the character of the followers of Jesus. E.g. the High priest Annas becomes like the old men Simeon who sees the long expected Messiah. But Annas' words refer on the luck to see the high council united against the enemy Jesus. Daisenberger get inspiration from Goethe's “Faust” to the desperation scene of Judas after the betrayal of Jesus.
The meeting of Maria and Jesus at the cross Daisenberger creates in the antique form of the Anagnorisis. In the prologues he reaches to alkäic and sapphic strophic forms.
The construction of the passion play shows a contentswise symmetry. The first part begins with the crowded scene ‚Marching in Jerusalem‘ where everyone is praising Jesus, and leads us up to loneliness in the Mount of Olives and therefore the loss of all friends. The second part is stamped by an increase of the enemies of Jesus, up to the scene where the people of Pilatus demand the crucifixion of Jesus. In the middle of these both parts lies the axis of the loneliness. The third part shows the rise of Jesus and therefore his independence of the people.
For the passion plays in 1870 Daisenberger tries to give a finally closed form to the passion play, while he catches the text in German blank verse and writes to the living pictures new prologues in the form of antique ode. However, this whole composition for unknown reasons was never performed. Nevertheless, since that time the play is called Daisenberger passion, without consideration of the Weiss’schen source material. Otto Huber has proved that in the version of 1860 still about half of the text were taken over partly literally, partly basically from Weis [13].
Daisenbergers work is less those of an artist, rather those of a knowing craftsman. „I feel that it was a venture exceeding my weak forces to treat the holy drama, this legacy of old-German devoutness, because I’m lacking the deeper understanding of the dramatic art, as well as the kind of my education which fell in the clarification period was not in addition provided to maintain that deeply dearly devout sense of the German ancestors in me. Still this sense was laid in me in my father's house.
However - I do not have imposed myself, I took over the work because it was arranged by authority and no one else was found, with the best wills, in love to my divine Redeemer and in view of a purpose: the edification of the Christian people.” [14]
Daisenbergers merit was to form the passion up-to-date, but the ideas on which the treatment was based had already become outdated. This can be led back on one hand on a delay of the South German and Austrian literature in general and, on the other hand, specific limping behind of Oberammergau.

Oberammergau Videos

2008-03-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

Contact

2007-12-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

Martin Wall
Alberichgasse 6
1150 Vienna
Austria
Email: m.wall(at)oberammergau.org

Turn of century

2007-12-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

The turn of the century becomes for Oberammergau in the relation of an advancement of the text the starting point of a stagnation, more or less lasting till this day, although this text already does not seem to be preserved-worth at that time. The government of Upper Bavaria demands for the passion in 1890 a reform of the text to lift „the old cultural-historical play on the height of the time and to preserve from a possible fiasco”[1] In 1886 the government appoints a board, lead by Dr. Johann N. Sepps PH (who wrote an important review in 1850[2]) to scrutinize the Oberammergauer passion plays. This board found the text bad. So the government suggested to instruct ‚Geier Wally ‘ – author Wilhelmine von Hillern or ecclesiastical council Carl Ettmayer with treatments what is likewise rejected by the Oberammergauern. Instead of a revised version the mutilation of the version of priest Daisenberger begins already in 1890. In 1900 the municipality of Oberammergau region publishes for the first time a ‚Offizielles libretto‘ which the entire text contain. Indeed, not the original text, but the just topical play text. This leads to the fact that the ‚Daisenberger text defended over and over again‘ is unknown itself to most Oberammergauern till this day.[3] Although there are, as already mentioned, voices which demand an advancement of the text, the voices which suggest ‚preserve!‘ become always louder. Released by the first reviews, in particular in 1850 from Martin Deutinger and Eduard Devrient who sees a „valuable relic of early Germany ” and „Hort of the German national mind ”[4] in the passion plays upper bunting region becomes the myth. The central idea of this myth is the „erfolgreichen struggle around preservation of the own, an identity saved against all menaces. [5] ” in 1840/50 encloses a choice of criticism through upper bunting region already 500 sides [6. Till 1900 the number of the newspaper reports has grown in the uncountable. In a bibliography [7] with regard to upper bunting region only 150 titles are performed about 1900. Beside different forms of documentations also some fictional stories. Under it also the best-seller ‚Der man God boobs of upper bunting region ‘ from Ludwig Ganghofer and from the church on the index sedately ‚Am cross. A passion novel from upper bunting region ‘ from after upper bunting region there moved Hermine of Hillern. In Paris a story ”Le Judas d’Oberammergau ” from Otto de Schachings appears in 1900 to ‚Den artistic ones and the customs of the fathers to loyal Oberammergauern ‘ Ludwig II let in the colossal crucifixion group chisel which he gives to the Oberammergauern in 1876, in appreciation of the special image given to him of the passion plays in 1871. With it he chisels the leitmotiv which haunts in many heads with regard to upper bunting region in stone. The turn of the century is a time of the social and political layout, everything seems threatened. Upper bunting region becomes the symbol of the fight against the setting of the old order. Accordingly the company list of the passion plays of 1900 and 1910 reads. In the eve of the First World War the oil magnate John Davidson Rockefeller, which architect August Eiffel, count Zeppelin, Ernst von Possart, director of the Munich court stage, which opera singer Adelina Patti, the conductor Felix Mottl and an immense number assembles in upper bunting region once again almost all representatives of the European nobility, but also in bishops from all over the world. Upper bunting region his attraction exercises [8] not only on ‚Who‘s who ‘. Especially for the Americans upper bunting region became a ‚Neben myth ‘, as a substitute to her breaking self-image from ”really new world in which one can throw off the trammels of the Old and rise to one’s full stature of an one ” [9] the dream of moral superiority of America it is destroyed by around reaching corruption in the public life more and more. Upper bunting region appears towards the healthy mountain village. The place in request ”of humanly perfection ... the possibility of life lived with maximum wiseness, happiness, and intensity. ” [10] ”Oberammergau thus came to represent in a certain way the idea of a divinely granted second chance for the humanly race. ” [11] in the course of the worldwide Vereinnahmung of upper bunting region the most different stereotypes are produced. A very typical one is the ‚einfache rural people ‘ from upper bunting region who have created the passion play from the religious strength of the public feeling. Besides, it is overlooked the fact with pleasure that the Oberammergauer live by the majority bourgeois, throw down quite only because the grounds in the prealpine area not enough yield and upper bunting region is a boob's village already since hundreds of years traditionally. The fact that the passion plays are no play of the people, but from the even in particular known authors who have exceedingly been formed for her time is denied partially absolutely. [12] Also the longing for one is reflected in this lost paradise. „Die tradition in very first line lends value and character to the Oberammergauer play. At the moment, because hievon becomes come away, geräth the whole in extreme danger. ” [13], a reviewer thinks in 1900 and grasps with it probably the mood with regard to upper bunting region, but also with regard to the situation in completely Germany.

Interwar Period

2007-11-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

Due to postwar confusions and the economic problems resulting from it, the passionplay of 1920 had to be cancelled and can not be retrieved until 1922. Despite a bullish mood and the feeling of a new beginning in Germany and also in Oberammergau the struggling for a revised text version of the passion play does not succeed. Maybe it's because the newly voted, only 33-year old, director George Johann Lang is more interested in aesthetic than contentwise questions. The rush to the play of 1922 is unexpected high and the incomes accordingly. But the inflation destroyes the profit for the most part. Nevertheless the municipality did decide not to assume one of the seven filming offers, which in-arrived since beginning of the year 1920, although the offers amount up to converted 14 billion Marks.
1930 Johann George Lang developes a comprehensive new staging.[1 ] Over the course of that he sketches a completely new stage and charges the architect and later mayor Raimund Lang to put up the first solidly built stage. In retrospect Otto Huber means: "The style of the stage was modern and at the same time `Nazi-like'. The large horizontal line is very impressiv, but the gesture of this architecture is nevertheless: You are small and I am large. This is the opposite of the christian message. It seems as if the religious theological questions became secondarily to art questions."[2] That Oberammergau with this staging is again at the height of the time, reveals itself at the fact that even directors like Max Reinhardt or Charles Dullin pronounce her admiration.[3 ]
"At a show in August a man with pale face, brown-reddish hair and a small moustache on the furrow of the upper lip sat in the passion theatre. He carried a trench coat and was accompanied by some men. After the play his friend Helene Bechstein brought him in the publishing house Lang where he was introduced and invited for tea. {...} The man was called Adolf Hitler.

Four years later in 1934 this man already was in power. This year was the tricentennial of the Oberammergauer passion vow, which is why a jubilee play was initiated. Whether and how far Oberammergau defends itself against the pocketing by the new politics of Germany, can be proved hardly today. But one thing is sure: The powerful exploited Oberammergau. The advertisement poster for 1934 shows the mountain-surrounded passion village from which a cross rises which is flowed round by light. The posters intended for the foreign country must carry by the will of the imperial propaganda ministry the label ‘Germany calling ’. Adolf Hitler calls Oberammergau, beside Bayreuth, the exponents of the German cultural life. [4] In the press the ideological pocketing is continued: „The three centuries of the passion play teach us that the loyalty between blood and ground is the hold strength of all folklore .... ” [5]
The church positions itself against this kind of pocketing of the passion plays by the political rulers and gives the Missio canonica, the official teaching competence of the church to Oberammergau.
But also within the passion play the ‚new mind ’ becomes visible: Thus Adam is equipped in a living picture with a German spade. Easy delitions prove suddenly clear anti-semitic statements. For example, the choral text to the living picture ‚Josef and his brothers‘ is shortened by the last stanza in which God's rage on the brothers of Josef and his people in general is neutralized: „He(Jesus) does not come to ruin, from the father's magnificence, all sinners should inherit, mercy, grace and bliss.”
After 1934 an order of a revised version of the passion plays goes out to the dramatist Leo Weismantel (1888 - 1964)[6] which is, nevertheless, pulled back again. The propaganda ministry explained the plays in preparation for 1940 for ‚reichswichtig‘ (of high importance for the nation). Nevertheless the passion play of 1940 must be called off because of outbreak of war.

The Begining

2007-10-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

According to village chronicle from the year 1859 the passion play is based on the vow of the Oberammergauer in the year 1633, when the plague in the place prevailed: "in the large disappointment, which had brought the terrible illness over the municipality, finally the superiors of the municipality, the six and twelve, met and the vow was made to hold the passion tragedy every ten years and from this time on not one more humans died, although still some had the plague characters."[1 ] contrary to most other passion plays the political municipality was carrier of the plays, since the vow was already originally carried out by the chiefs of the municipality. When the plague yielded, they redeemed their promise. "This probably did not insert the representation of passion into Oberammergau as new, but did make the regular performance of the same after ten years each to a duty of the municipality."[2 ]

1634 as thanks to God for the rescue the first passion play was presented by 60-70 actors on the cemetery beside the church.[3 ] The original version of the text of the Oberammergauer passion play is not delivered. The first received libretto originates from the year 1662.[4] The libretto contains the reference, "is wiederumb renoviert"(is renovated)[5], which permits on the one hand the conclusion that it was played since 1634 in this version and only the paper was freted already so it had to be put down again or on the other hand this could mean that the text is adapted.
This text, which covers 4902 verses, is not a new creation, but a compilation from the Augsburger Passionsspiel[6] (2nd half 15. Century), and a reformatory passion play of the Augsburger Meistersingers Sebastian Wild.[7] The connection of these two texts was proven in a carintien passion and in a Chiemgauer passion, those were played around 1600 and to those the Oberammergauer referred to.[8] The third source are probably either a lost or yet not proven passion play. Maybe it is an older Oberammergauer resurrection-play.[9]
For the fifth repetition of the vow in the year 1674 they added scenes from the Weilheimer passion from the years 1600 and 1615, to the Oberammergauer play. Thus for the first time the devil came into the play, and the figure of the "soul". For the first time also musical organization is noted in the libretto: Eleven-times they sang[10], ten times the occurrence of the authority is marked by drums[12]
The sixth passion year was already six years later. The passion "was demonstrated in the year 1680 to the Christian people, and from then on it remained on the decimals number"[13]. Why is unknown.
The libretto of the passion of 1720[14] shows a stage in the style of the time, with large portal and curtain, which permit covered stage changes and which auditorium separates clearly from the stage. In addition the text version experienced a structuring in acts and scenes. Also language and rhymes were adapted to the style of time.
1730[15] beside Satan, additional representatives of hell as allegoric figures of envy, avarice, sin and death were added to the play . The stylistic device of stopping action too living pictures, traditionally to serve Meditation, was also extended

After 1945

2007-10-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

With the passion plays of 1950 an exhibition is connected with the title "1000 years Christian art in the indication of the passion '. Already in this title it shows up that the restaurative thought wide-spread in Germany held, also in Oberammergau introduction. No one wants a new start, but simply move on, where one stopped before this "terrible Intermezzo '. Characteristically for this mind is also the re-election of the mayor Raimund in the year 1950. 1970 Wilm Sanders still doubts the necessity for changes: "already before 1970 the controversy over the passion play text in the public caught fire. The reproaches became louder, this play are discriminating for the Jews. Against all historical logic the plays were 1950 without such criticism remained, also 1960 were the reproaches still scarcely audible."[1 ]
Otto Huber in an unpublished writing proved that despite substantial criticism on the part of the press and the criticism already using after 1950 by Jewish organizations at the quality and the anti-Semitic tendency of the text and the direction, neither at the production nor at the text changes are made. Only the passion music of Rochus Dedler becomes from the native Oberammergauer Professor Eugen Pope (1886-1956) already for the passion plays of 1950 fundamental revised.[2 ]
1962 the Oberammergauer mayor Raimund Lang convened a "advisory committee regarding the question of a change of text of the Oberammergauer Passion play' under the direction of Dr. Clemens Graf Podewil (academy of fine arts). In one of the meetings Carl Orff brings in the suggestion to fall back to the "Passio Nova" of 1750 of the padre Ferdinand Rosner. He explains himself ready to procure the music for it. The suggestion meets agreement in the committee and also in the local council.
1966 determine the local council Hans Schwaighofer as a play leader for 1970 and decide for a public sample performance on the basis of the Rosner text.
1967 the local council decides against the sample performance. Schwaighofer steps back as a play leader.[3 ]
1970 under loud criticism from the outside the past version without drastic changes is brought to the performance . The conservative forces celebrate their success with a book with a characteristic sub-title "peoples heard the signals". Therein e.g. is a quote from a letter of an American mannequin: "the protest from Jewish side should be ignored. Not a word of the Bible may be touched, to calm down the ignorant ones."[4 ] she confounded in awkward way contents of the Bible with contents of the Oberammergauer of passion plays.
Someone else calls all critics destroyer: "Humans of good will from this side and beyond the ocean had understood that today freedom of religion spirit and conscience must be defended actively:
- against the hate and cynicism of church-hostile and atheistic circles, which want to knock the faith out of everybody
- and against the work of a minority from the inside, which calls itself progressively, critically, democratically and prepares the self destruction of churches and Christianity."[5 ]
This kind of the polemik create deep ditches within Oberammergau. Nevertheless the discussion did not come off any longer for succumbing and thus succeeds it approximately large of resistances finally 1977 a "Rosner sample ' to bring also within Oberammergau. But the attempt throughout positively evaluated by press, church and Jewish organizations, is by the majority rejected within Oberammergau. Thus all reform beginnings are again shifted on indefinite time. Only for the passion 1990 succeeds setting the young Christian Stueckl for the progressive forces in the local council of Oberammergau as new play leader through. Although it stands outside of the discussion around "Rosner", it is a guarantor for the formal and contentwise advancement of the passion.

Pictures

2007-10-14T12:30:00.000-07:00