Published: 26 September 2011
Category: Vocal & Opera

Leigh Melrose is currently performing at English National Opera, where he is singing the role of Tadeusz in Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s moving opera The Passenger, based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz.

The opera tells of an encounter between two women – one a former Auschwitz guard, the other a former prisoner – taking them both back to the horrors of the Holocaust, with thought-provoking themes of perpetrator versus victim and the moral battle between guilt and denial, retribution and absolution. The opera was banned in the USSR and only finally received its stage premiere at last year’s Bregenz Festival, 14 years after Weinberg’s death. David Pountney’s production is a triumph and Sir Richard Armstrong conducts the ENO Orchestra.

There are further performances on September 29, October 7, 13, 15, 22 and 25.

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