Name: St. John Passion
Start: 2022-07-24T15:00:00
Location: Sunset Center Theater

Dashon Burton

Thomas Cooley

Andrew Megill

Clara Rottsolk

Meg Bragle

Carmel Bach Festival

Bach’s Passions are deeply embedded in the Carmel Bach Festival tradition, and the Festival is proud to continue the tradition by presenting St. John Passion in 2022.  The St. John Passion is more dramatic and expressive than the St. Matthew Passion. Because it is shorter, the narrative of the St. John Passion is relentless, visceral, and intense. In fact, this work might be the closest thing to an opera Bach composed.  The oratorio Passion—comprised of Biblical texts enhanced by lyrical arias and chorales—was a relatively new form when Bach created the St. John Passion in 1724. The Passion begins with one of Bach’s finest choruses, “Herr unser Herrscher.” The New Yorker’s Alex Ross has said regarding this chorus: “Whatever images come to mind, the craft that went into the making of the scene—the melodic inspiration, the contrapuntal rigor, the immaculate demonstration of the rules, the insolent breaking of them—is as astounding now as it must have been on that day in 1724 (when St. John Passion premiered). One notable fact about the St. John Passion…is that we have no eyewitness account of the première. If the good people of Leipzig understood that they were in the presence of the most stupendous talent in musical history, they gave no sign.”  These performances will utilize period instruments at Baroque pitch, offering Carmel audiences a similar experience as the congregants in 1724 at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, and will be directed by Associate Conductor Andrew Megill.  “The themes the St. John Passion explores go beyond the walls of any specific church or denomination,” said Andrew Megill. Light versus darkness, truth versus falsehood, how we are constrained by and transcend the bonds of time, and the good and evil that lie within the human heart.”