If you've just watched our St John Passion, the brand new documentary or the pre show talk, let us know if you have any questions for the artists behind this production.
If you've just watched our St John Passion, the brand new documentary or the pre show talk, let us know if you have any questions for the artists behind this production.
A question for the artists joining us today, I expect you will have had few or no opportunities to perform this year, but do you think that your relationship with music generally has changed in that time?
The place that music has within my identity has had to be rebalanced. It's easy for ones identity as a singer to be all consuming, so when being a singer seems to be put on hold by a global pandemic it could have been easy to lose all sense of oneself.
There are definitely things I had sometimes taken for granted, which once taken away, were sorely missed.
Fantastic and inspiring colleagues, the thrill of live performance, the tireless work of all the people that make live theatre tick.
The performances I've been involved in over the last year have felt like a real privilege.
Well done to you and all in the sector who have faced a toughening year. How do you find the motivation to practice??!
Richard, I completely agree. This year has really brought home to me how lucky we are to do what we do. The opportunities I have had to perform during this time have been such a pleasure, and very emotional too!
Melody, it was really hard to practise in the beginning of lockdown. But a little like neglecting any positive activity..exercise, reading etc it only made me feel worse NOT to sing.
So when I could summon the energy I sang on my own or with whoever was at hand and tried to look to the future.....
Thank you very much for putting on this wonderful performance!
One question though: what made you replace the word "Jude" or Juden" mit "Leute"?
It really does not work for my German ears, and Bach's text (taken from the bible!) is sacrosanct to me, so I really would like to know why you felt you needed to change the word: political correctness, fear of offending Jewish listeners?
Thank you for watching and commenting, Gunhild.
Well spotted, the text for this performance has indeed be altered slightly, and this is for reasons of cultural sensitivity.
Thank you for your warm words. We are delighted you enjoyed the performance.
Thank you for your reply - I understand the thinking behind it. However, there is another reason why the change of word is so problematic: the German language has 2 translations for the English word people: Volk und Leute. The latter - Leute - describes a random and lose aggregation of humans, unlike Volk, which defines a group with shared culture, etc.
Forgive me for being a linguistic pedant, but when I hear: " der Hohepriester der Leute" it is a semantical impossibility.
You are working on such a high level I just can't stop myself for making you aware of this particular linguistic pitfall. I presume that even among your (small?) German audience there will not be many who like me can get so worked up ...
Sorry again for being a fusspot and banging on about it. I will shut up now, I promise!