Jon Griffin visits Germany to see how a Bavarian village is preparing to keep up a medieval tradition.
It’s a once in a decade world phenomenon – a glorious celebration of the most famous story of all time which has been running for hundreds of years longer than the Mousetrap. Quite a billing admittedly, but the Oberammergau Passion Play is in a category of its own when it comes to artistic longevity.
Agatha Christie’s West End thriller is billed on its theatre website as the longest-running show in the world. But forget the fiction and simply examine the remarkable facts surrounding the Passion Play.
You have to go back to 1633 to discover the original incarnation of the Oberammergau play, and even further back, to the very birth of Jesus Christ, to unearth its roots.
The play originates from a vow taken at the time of the Thirty Years War in central Europe, which had resulted in widespread poverty and disease.
As if that were not enough in those bloodthirsty times, a terrible plague swept through the continent, claiming many thousands of lives. The tiny village of Oberammagau in Bavaria saw 80 of its inhabitants wiped out and after months of suffering the locals were desperate, with one in two families mourning relatives lost to the disease.
At the village’s overflowing cemetery, mourners made a vow, promising to put on a play portraying the suffering and death of Jesus to try to keep the plague at bay and please the Almighty.
Erecting a symbol of Christ on poles and crossbars, they pledged to re-enact the Passion Play every 10 years. There were no further deaths in the village and the promise has been dutifully kept, more or less, ever since.
At Whitsun 1634, the Oberammergauers first performed the Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ on a stage constructed in the cemetery, directly above the graves of recent plague victims. It was the start of a fascinating tradition.
For the forthcoming 2010 production, which will run from May 15 to October 3, script editors Christian Stuckl and Otto Huber have revised the text of the play, questioning how the Nazareth reformer managed to turn the powers of the day against him while still attracting a loyal following. New stage sets and costumes are being designed while the second part of the play will be performed in the evening in accordance with the wishes of the villagers. The play will begin at 2.30pm and, following a three-hour dinner interval, end at 10.30pm.
Only people born in the village or who have lived there for at least 20 years are allowed to take part and, of Oberammergau’s 5,200 or so current inhabitants, around 2,500 will be involved with the production, as performers, seamstresses, stage hands, musicians or in other roles. And, starting on Ash Wednesday last year, the chosen actors grow their hair – and men their beards – as no wigs or false beards are allowed, to capture a little of the fashionable styles of more than 2,000 years ago.
We travelled to Oberammergau, courtesy of German airline Lufthansa, for a pre-Christmas visit to Bavaria to view the preparations for this extraordinary once-in-a-decade performance of art.
The village is set in the valley of the River Amner, amongst lush meadows and gentle Alpine foothills, ringed by the craggy peaks of the Alps.
It’s little more than an hour’s drive away from Munich and its bustling international airport, yet the contrast to big city life is startling.
Picturesque parks and gardens abound, while the air really does seem as clear and pure as the film landscape Julie Andrews scampered across in The Sound of Music all those years ago.
The village is also home to a long tradition of woodcarving, with beautiful ornamental painted frescoes on houses dotted around the streets.
It’s several worlds removed from the hustle and bustle of urban existence. A Bavarian torch hike took us along the River Amner to the rustic surroundings of the Ettaler Muhle restaurant in nearby Ettal.
It wasn’t exactly a scene from Where Eagles Dare – but the Alpine surroundings and the torches illuminating the Bavarian night sky still evoked images of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood intrepidly making their way under darkness to the Schloss Adler in the 1960s wartime epic.
Back in the real world, we enjoyed a variety of Bavarian delights during our all too brief 24-hour stay in Oberammagau, including a visit and backstage tour of the Passion Play theatre, where tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world are expected to congregate later this year.
Mention must be made of the Hotel Bold at Konig Ludwig-Strasse, our home for the Oberammergau leg of the visit. It’s a charming spot, overlooking the foothills of the Alps with a clear mountain stream in the foreground.
And our friendly barman was quite happy – eventually – to keep the beers flowing into the early hours. Bavarian wheat beer is definitely to be recommended for all first-time visitors to this part of the world.
A hearty breakfast of Alpine cold meats and cheeses successfully cleared any lingering hangovers, and we were all set for the second leg of our Bavarian adventure.
There was a visit to nearby Grossweil for a guided tour through the Christmas markets, where glasses of gluhwein – the German equivalent of mulled wine – were readily available to fortify visitors against the late November chill.
And then it was off by coach south of Munich for Murnau, an Alpine location eminently suitable for culture lovers and sightseers alike. Like Oberammergau, Mornau is straight out of picture-book Bavaria. Beautifully situated in the foothills of the Alps, the town boasts an extraordinary artistic tradition.
It was here that Vassily Kandinsky, the Russian pioneer credited with painting the first modern abstract works, a new expressionist style which revolutionised the world of art, lived in the early years of the 20th century.
And it was also in this part of the world that Kandinsky began a relationship with Berlin-born Gabriele Munter, later to become a key figure in the Munich avant-garde movement of the period.
The house where the two artists lived is still there, a handsome structure a short ten-minute walk from the picturesque town centre.
Kandinsky’s Russian roots forced him back to his homeland when World War One broke out, and the two artists never saw each other again.
But Munter stayed true to the cause of art, hiding Kandinsky’s work and those of other members of the Blue Rider expressionist group from the Nazis during the Second World War. She died, aged 85, in Murnau in May 1962.
Murnau Castle is also one of this charming town’s numerous claims to fame. The oldest part of the building dates from the year 1233 and there are still remnants of the original medieval windows.
Today the town is a popular destination for summer holidays, its popularity as a Bavarian retreat enhanced by the erection of elegant villas dating back to the late 19th century. There’s something intangible in the air at both Oberammergau and Murnau. It’s a beguiling mixture of stunning scenery, cleanliness, tradition and culture which has survived plagues, wars and other horrors for centuries. Long may that continue.
Travel Facts
* Jon Griffin flew with Lufthansa to Bavaria. Lufthansa flights to Munich are available from £99 from Birmingham, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Inverness. See www.lufthansa.com
* For details of the Hotel Bold, Oberammergau, see www.hotelboeld.de or email info@hotelboeld.de
* Information on the Passion Play is available at www.oberammergau-passion.com.
