Movement in Italian Dramatizations of J. S. Bach's Passions: From the Church to the Theater and Back

Abstract

Abstract: The dramatization of J. S. Bach's Passions is now an accepted fact among audiences and music critics, but what were the beginnings of this tradition? This article examines the first two stagings of the St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion . These appeared in 1984–1985, staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi and Jurij Ljubimov, respectively, in two major Italian theaters (Teatro la Fenice in Venice and Teatro alla Scala in Milan) on the occasion of Bach's 300th anniversary and the European Year of Music. The focus is on the dimension of movement and the interaction among stage space, those involved in the production, and the audience. Using the available materials, I sketch the contours of the performance spaces, define the role of the actors on stage, and attempt to reconstruct their movements in relation to Bach's music and the Gospel narrative. These two case studies are related to other experiences with the dramatization of Bach's Passions in the Italian context by Edward Gordon Craig (1913, 1933), Ferruccio Busoni (1924), and Vittorio Biagi (1974, 1983, 1985). The aim is to identify common issues related to the staging of the Passions, and to clarify the ways in which macroand micro-movements were important for mediating Lutheran works such as the Passions for Catholicism.