CROSS CANTATAS

Although Johann Sebastian Bach never wrote an opera, the vocal portion of his oeuvre is permeated with a profound understanding of and remarkable feel for dramaturgy. It is with such sophistication that he sets – and even creates – the lyrics to the five lines of the staff, and his musical notation woven with the sigh motif of the cross-bearer woven from webs of the double-crosses of sharps notes is sometimes so refined, that performing them amidst large sets in enormous spaces would present a formidable challenge. Nevertheless, the Opera strives to expand the boundaries of the genre, and this spirit is being embodied in yet another experiment: a production that dresses up the great cross cantatas, written for bass voice, in the additional possibilities available from total art.

Featuring a different Hungarian church choir at each performance and the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra.