Norman Lebrecht on Music

Making art of the Holocaust

DAYS AFTER THE ZONE OF INTEREST won two Oscars in Hollywood, a shattering Holocaust opera was brought to the stage in Munich and Madrid. Like the Martin Amis novel on which Jonathan Glazer based his emotionless film, Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger takes the perspective of a perpetrator — a female Auschwitz guard who encounters a former victim after the war. The SS woman is in shock and we are expected to empathise. Making art of the Holocaust is contentious. The worst crime in history cannot be contextualised, as Glazer attempted on Oscars night by comparing “dehumanising” Israeli actions to Auschwitz. The Holocaust is an unique horror that can be understood from two standpoints: victim and oppressor. That bilateralism is what makes The Passenger one of the most essential operas of…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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