PROPRIETÀ PRIVATA: EIN BERLINER PASSIONSSPIEL

Easter sees the Volksbühne transform into the venue for a great passion play to combat Good Friday depression.Join itinerants Sophie Rois and the Volksbühne ensemble  on St. Francis‘ Way of the Cross while they fight against techno-feudalism and the privatisation of theatre. In two special performances, the pilgrim group is joined by the Berlin Sing-Akademie, Berlin’s State and Cathedral Choir, and by the Berlin Chamber Symphony. Combining forces, they will perform excerpts from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Mendelssohn’s Christus Fragment, and the stirring oratorio Tongues of Fire by Greek composer Jani Christou, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year.

The city of Berlin was founded as a result of the missionary work of Franciscan monks, who contributed in reclaiming these swampy grounds by establishing the Grey Monastery in 1210. And now is perhaps the right time to re-evangelize our city in the spirit of Franciscan common land.

“[I]f, from among the silent majority, an archaic form of fascism should be reborn, this could happen only as a result of the scandalous choice that this silent majority will have made between the sacredness of life, on the one hand, and inheritance law and private property on the other: a choice in favour of the latter horn is a dilemma. Unlike Calvino, I therefore think that—without losing faith in our humanistic and rational intellectual tradition—we must no longer be afraid of not casting enough discredit on the sacred, or of having a heart.” (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Corsair Writings 1975)