The modern play takes place on an open-air stage with a covered auditorium seating 4,700. With a total cast of 1,000, the play boasts 130 speaking parts and hundreds of smaller parts. To be eligible for a role, the person must have either been born in Oberammergau or lived there 20 years.
Performance
Schedule:
Dates:
Sunday, May 16 to Sunday, October 3, 2010.
Times:
The play will be performed in the afternoon and evening. Part I from
2:30 pm to 5:00pm and Part II from 8:00pm to 10:30pm.
Key Dates:
Ash Wednesday 2009: The traditional "Hair Decree" -
on this date all the male performers begin to let their hair and
beards grow in preparation for their roles in the play.
April 2009: The leading actors are selected
May - September 2010: The 41st Passion Play is performed
Passion Play
Facts:
More than 2,000 people are directly involved, both on and behind the
stage. In addition to performers there are 50 members each in the
orchestra and chorus, and many who work as set and costume
designers, electricians, stagehands, etc. Still others cater to the
thousands of visitors who come to see the play.
Producer:
Christian Stückl (also directed the 1990 and 2000 plays)
Musical
Director/Conductor:
Markus Zwink (director in 1990 and 2000) and Michael Bocklet.
Music Composer:
Rochus Dedler
Designer:
Stefan Hageneier
The History of Oberammergau
Only Once Per Decade...
The town
vowed that if God were to spare them from the effects of the bubonic
plague ravaging the region, they would perform a play every ten years
depicting the life and death of Jesus. The death rate among adults rose
from one in October 1632 to twenty in the month of March 1633. The adult
death rate slowly subsided to one in the month of July 1633. The
villagers believed they were spared after they kept their part of the
vow when the play was first performed in 1634. The most recent
performance was in 2000.
The play, now performed repeatedly over the course of five months, during the first year of each decade, involves over 2,000 performers, musicians, and stage technicians, all of whom are residents of the village.
The Oberammergau play has a running time of approximately seven hours. A meal is served during the intermission of the play. Audiences come from all over the world, often on package tours, the first instituted in 1870. Admission fees were first charged in 1790. Since 1930, the number of visitors has ranged from 420,000 to 530,000.
There were
at least two years in which the scheduled performance did not take
place. In 1770, Oberammergau was informed that all passion plays in
Bavaria had been banned by order of the Ecclesiastical Council of the
Elector, Maximillian Joseph at the behest of the Catholic Church. In
1780, the play was retitled The Old and New Testament. The new
Elector, Karl Theodore, having been assured that the play was "purged of
all objectionable and unseemly matter" approved the performance of the
play. By 1830, the Catholic Church succeeded in halting the performance
of all other passion plays in Bavaria. Only Oberammergau remained.
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Hotel Angerbrau, |
Hotel Der Schilcherhof, |
Das Johannesbad, |
