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History of the Passion Play :: Oberammergau, Germany :: Passion Play 2010 |
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The 2010 Passion Play will be a historic year for Wilcox World Travel and Tours / American Express. We will be participating in operating tours to this spectacular performance for the 7th time, stretching back to our first year in 1960. Wilcox World Travel and Tours / American Express operated over 33 European tour groups during the production of the play in 2000, which included the Passion Play performance in their itinerary.
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 Along with the villagers and people from all corners of the world, you'll experience an ancient, historical reenactment of the life of Jesus Christ. The picturesque village of Oberammergau , Germany, nestled high in the Bavarian Alps, is a favorite destination for those seeking an outdoor experience in the mountains and great shopping in the wonderful, privately owned shops scattered all over town. |
A town of ornate chalets inhabited chiefly by woodcarvers who combine medieval craftsmanship with modern salesmanship, ship their whittlings all over the world. Over the town looms the jagged Kofel peak; in the town a bearded newsboy, attired in plus fours, sells his papers from a motorcycle.
But the last year of each decade , it achieves worldwide recognition as the town turns the area into the world-renowned "Passion Play of Christ" theater production. |
The play, now performed repeatedly over the course of five months, involves over 2,000 residents of Oberammergau, who become performers, musicians, and stage technicians. In this Bavarian village, the social register is the Holy Bible. Rising young men aspire to be Peter or John or Joseph, the more self-confident of them have even thought of being Jesus himself. The play comprises spoken dramatic text, musical and choral accompaniment and tableaux vivants. |
The tableaux vivants are scenes from the Old Testament depicted for the audience by motionless actors accompanied by verbal description. These scenes are the basis for the typology, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, of the play. They include scenes, such as, the brothers selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt, King Ahasuerus rejecting Vashti in favor of Esther, and Moses raising up the bronze serpent in the wilderness as the children of Israel escape bondage from Egypt. Each scene precedes that section of the play that is considered to be prefigured by the scene. The three tableaux mentioned are presented to the audience as prefiguring Christianity superseding Judaism, Judas selling information on the location of Jesus, and the crucifixion. |
The history of the Passion Play dates back to 1632, when a local woodcarver came back to Oberammergau after selling his wares around Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and brought the plague home to Oberammergau. Within a year, the plague had taken nearly a quarter of Oberammergau's inhabitants. In a desperate plea to God, the town vowed to perform a Passion Play every ten years if God would spare them from the plague. The death rate among adults rose from one in October 1632 to twenty in the month of March 1633. The adult death rate slowly subsided to one in the month of July 1633. The villagers believed they were spared after they kept their part of the vow when the play was first performed in 1634 on a stage they put up in the cemetery above the fresh graves of the plague victims. The performance was first known as the "Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ"
God did appear to protect the village of Oberammergau and the Passion Play theater production began. The 41st production of the play will be held from the middle of May to the middle of October 2010. We invite you to experience the once in a life-time event of this world-famous performance by joining one of our groups as they tour around Europe and attend one of the few performances of the Passion Play.
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In our opinion, the evolution of the Passion Play was somewhat like that of the Easter Play, which originated in the Latin Church, which has the Gospel on Good Friday being sung in parts, divided among various persons.
The Oberammergau Passion Play has a running time of approximately seven hours. A meal is served during the intermission of the play. Audiences come from all over the world, often on package tours, the first instituted in 1870. |
Admission fees were first charged in 1790. Since 1930, the number of visitors has ranged from 420,000 to 530,000.
There were at least two years in which the scheduled performance did not take place. In 1770, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church, the Ecclesiastical Council of the Elector, Maximilian Joseph banned all passion plays in Bavaria and Oberammergau was informed that they could not perform. In 1780, the play was retitled The Old and New Testament. The new Elector, Karl Theodor, approved the performance after being assured that the play was "purged of all objectionable and unseemly matter".
In 1830, the Catholic Church was successful in halting the performance of all other passion plays in Bavaria, except for Oberammergau’s performance .
One of the actors, Anton Lang played the Christ in the passion play in the 1920s and '30s. Anton Lang was known for his Oberammergau German Art Pottery. Anton Lang was a German/American potter and was also a noted studio potter in Ohio. The Lang family was very prominent in Oberammergau. When he became too old to be an actor, he read the prologue.
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