No 232 The Moabite Passion

Moabit Gestapo prison, Berlin, winter of 1945. A dozen resistance fighters await their execution. Among them Rüdiger Schleicher, the brother-in-law of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his cell, a violin and the piano arrangement of his most precious musical treasure: »Shaken, we hear the ›Erbarme dich‹. The whole of the St Matthew Passion is contained in that one voice«. From this, Michael Maul has created a story for the stage which finally becomes a Passion story in itself: one of humanity in the midst of terror, of compelling people who, even »in the face of the utmost brutality«, never changed stance. It is told by two of Germany’s best-known character actors. By way of accompaniment, violinist Sergey Malov performs precisely that music in which the condemned found consolation and hope to the very last.