Weinberg's The Passenger at the Opéra National du Capitole (Toulouse)

Mieczysław Weinberg’s powerful opera The Passenger makes its French debut at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. Based on a 1962 novel by concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz, the work narrates the story of two women — an ex-Auschwitz guard and a former prisoner — who meet again on a transatlantic liner 15 years after the war. Supressed memories come to light, as the narrative navigates a dual world of post-war normalcy and the horrors of the Holocaust. Though completed in 1968, The Passenger did not have its first complete staging until 2010, when David Pountney’s production brought this essential 20th-century masterpiece to international prominence. This staging by Johannes Reitmeier that brings the opera to France for the first time is already a proven hit, having won the Austrian Music Theater Prize in 2023.