Five drum beats and it is Christmas. Among Johann Sebastian Bach’s large-scale vocal and instrumental works, the Christmas Oratorio that was first performed over the festive period of 1734/35 is by some distance the most popular. Through the inexhaustibly rich and clear tonal and harmonic language of the deeply religious choirmaster of St. Thomas’s, his subtle combination of traditional melodies, reprised secular cantatas, new compositions and chorales ranging from the ceremonial to the heartfelt, this version of the Christmas story is one that still remains familiar to Christians and non-Christians alike.

The birth of a child to a simple woman sets the entire world in motion. Whether one believes in it or not, whether one understands or doubts it, challenges it or is challenged by it – this is an event that leaves no one cold. What if what happened in a stable in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago were to happen today? A child whose birth promises redemption arrives in the middle of a city, right next door. In Johann Sebastian Bach’s work his clear, deeply felt and sensual music allows the most diverse voices to express themselves in reacting directly to an experience that, now as it did then, represented and represents a new beginning.

Director Elisabeth Stöppler, stage designer Annika Haller and costume designer Su Siegmund create close ups and snapshots of a wide range of people in a worldly urban environment that tell of their desire for a collective commitment and affinity, of loneliness and failure, of hope. With fourteen soloists and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein chorus, all six parts of the Christmas Oratorio will be heard in this music theatre version. read less