Although it was composed in 1968, Mieczyław Weinberg's opera “The Passenger” was only staged in its entirety for the first time in 2010. The work, which is based on a 1962 novel by concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz, quickly became known as one of the most important operas of the second half of the 20th century - with a subject matter that is more important today than ever. David Pountney's first production has since achieved classic status and is being performed here for the first time at Madrid's Teatro Real, conducted by Mirga Gražinytè-Tyla, who has been instrumental in the recent Weinberg renaissance.

The cast includes soprano Amanda Majeski (Marta), mezzo-soprano Daveda Karanas (Lisa), tenor Nikolai Schukoff (Walter) and baritone Gyula Orendt (Tadeusz). Violinist Stephen Waarts doubles as Tadeusz for the instrumental solo.

The audio album is set for digital release on 24 January 2025, shortly before International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 January), which marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945, and honours the memory of all victims of Nazism.

The action of the opera switches between the deck of an ocean liner sailing from Europe to Brazil in the early 1960s, and the concentration camp of Auschwitz. On board the ship, Lisa, wife of German diplomat Walter, who is heading to a new posting in Brazil, believes she has recognised a woman she thought was dead. The latter is the “passenger” of the title – Marta, a Polish prisoner at Auschwitz, where Lisa herself was an SS guard, a fact she only now discloses to her husband, who has to decide how to come to terms with this revelation. Wartime flashbacks, meanwhile, depict the horrors of the camp and the doomed relationship between Marta and her violinist fiancé Tadeusz on the second lower level.