Bach's St John Passion – The Women Around the Cross

Dancers Highlight the Women Around the Cross

Experience Bach’s perhaps most dramatic musical work in a different way. With movements, dance, and tableaux in shimmering lighting, the women around Jesus’ journey to the cross are highlighted, giving the music multiple dimensions. Texts from the Gospel of John form the basis for music that expresses both eruptive emotions and quiet reflections by both choir and solo singers. Nine dancers from the Ballet Academy in Stockholm have created choreography themselves that highlights the presence, emotions, and reactions of the women.

The Stories of Mary Magdalene – The Female Perspective

In 1896, some worn papyrus scrolls with Coptic manuscripts from the 4th century were found in Cairo. Some of the texts turned out to date back as far as the 2nd century AD and were records of the stories of Mary Magdalene. Here is a slightly different version of a story where women have always been present but which has almost exclusively been told by men.

Is it simply time to introduce a female perspective on the story of how Jesus was betrayed, interrogated, humiliated, and crucified? What did the women around him feel? What did they do? And how can it be portrayed?

On April 17 and 18, Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion will be performed by the Cantemus choir, BarockorkesterN, soloists, and dancers from the Ballet Academy in a choreographed light setting.

Abstract!

In “abstract” ways, the women around Jesus during his last days are highlighted. The dancers wear long white dresses in sheer materials, and the choir stands in Berwaldhallen are draped with long white fabrics. Everything is lit to create a world of color, movement, and tableaux that, together with Bach’s music, offer the audience new experiences.

It was before a maidservant that Peter first denied Jesus. What did she think about that? She recognized him. And what about the women in the crowd gathered when the chief priests and Pilate interrogated Jesus? Did they really agree that Jesus, who healed the sick and raised the dead, had to die and that Barabbas, a murderer, should be released? And later, when Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary Magdalene stood by the cross during Jesus’ last hours of life: besides the music, can dance portray what the two most important women in his life experienced at that moment?

Music Written in 1724 – but feels like newly written

The St. John Passion was first performed in Leipzig in 1724 and is perhaps Bach’s most dramatic work, where the Gospel of John is narrated by an evangelist – a tenor soloist – who presents the biblical text in words and tones with powerful support from the choir and other soloists. The choir portrays both agitated crowds urging Pilate to crucify Jesus and reflects on what is happening in painfully beautiful, tenderly arranged chorales with harmonies that feel newly written.

Jesus and Pilate are portrayed by bass soloists, but also – like the tenor soloist, soprano soloist, and alto soloist – pause to highlight key moments in the gospel story in both dramatic and reflective arias and ariosi.

The focus of the St. John Passion is on Jesus’ suffering and death, but the final scene at the cross foreshadows the continuation of the story: Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb and Jesus appearing to her. It is a woman who conveys Christianity’s greatest message to the disciples – the resurrection.