De Singel
Antwerp, Belgium
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
The St Matthew Passion
a sacred oratorio for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra with libretto by Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici), BWV 244 (1727–1729/1736)
TBA, tenor (Evangelist)
Johannes Kammler, bass (Jesus)
Iveta Simonyan, soprano
Yulia Vakula, alto
TBA, countertenor
David Fischer, tenor
Ludwig Mittelhammer, bass
Utopia Orchestra and Choir
Conductor Teodor Currentzis
In March 2027, Teodor Currentzis returns to Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The Utopia Orchestra will be joined by the Utopia Choir, bringing together singers from leading ensembles across Europe and beyond, as well as an international cast of soloists.
The St Matthew Passion stands among the most profound artistic meditations on suffering and compassion, death and the promise of redemption. Nearly three centuries after its first performance in Leipzig during Holy Week of 1727, it speaks to our own age with extraordinary emotional and spiritual force.
The work sets the Gospel account of Christ’s Passion from the final chapters of St Matthew alongside Picander’s reflective poetry and Lutheran chorales. Written for soloists, two choirs and two orchestras, it unfolds on several planes at once. It is a work of immense scale, resembling a vast fresco in which different centuries, histories, and layers of human experience coexist. The events unfolding in Jerusalem, the spiritual imagination of Luther’s world, the intellectual and devotional culture of Bach’s time, and the questions of the present inhabit a single contemplative space.
Yet the miracle of the St Matthew Passion lies not in its magnitude but in its intimacy. Beneath the monumental architecture lies music of incomparable clarity, tenderness, and emotional truth. Bach transforms the story of the Passion into something that reaches beyond doctrine or confession: a work that speaks, with disarming directness, to the shared experience of every human heart.