Live Recording from Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 2005.
Choreography, Staging, Scenography by John Neumeier.
“I am both Christian and a Dancer”
'John Sebastian Bach‘s Matthew Passion has deeply moved me. Bach‘s musical incarnation of the Passion in both its general and personal aspects created the need in me to fi nd a choreographic equivalent. I am both Christ and a dancer. My whole life, all my thought and feeling are the dance, and choreography is my real language. That is why I have attempted to express my own religious convictions and experiences in choreographic terms and to organize them in artistic form.
In my entire career as a choreographer, I have never known a period in which I enjoyed such complete harmony with the dancers, as I have enjoyed throughout the creation of the St. Matthew Passion. It was a period of learning from one another, of experiencing instinctively together the emotion of text and music, of positive cooperation and concentration. Even if this ballet had never got beyond rehearsals and had never been performed, the process of its creation will remain the most profound experience of my working life.' John Neumeier
„One‘s imagination can feast on this ballet and its implications, one can become personally involved, but it is difficult if not impossible to imagine any other company performing it. It is the unique expression of this man and this company he has forged.“ Dance Magazine
BONUS: Includes a Multi-Angle-View
Sound Format: PCM Stereo
Picture Format: 16:9
DVD Format: 1 x DVD5, 2 x DVD9, NTSC
Running Time: 211 mins
FSK: 0
March 2011
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“Neumeier, who bows out here as Christ-like dancer, sees this as his finest achievement. Balletomanes may agree; music lovers might be baffled by choreographed Bach.”
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