Regietheater and the staging of Bach's St. Matthew Passion

Abstract

The commonly stated phrase ‘Bach is Universal’ is, in its simplest form, false. Bach composed his music in worship of a specific God, for a particular group of people, at a unique point in time. Yet, there is something about this statement that feels inherently true. Richard Taruskin argues that musicians should not act as ‘museum curators.’ Instead, he believes music is a living entity that elicits different responses from people over time, and it is within these responses that the most ‘authentic’ performances are conceived. It is the living, active state of music that gives Bach’s compositions their ‘universal’ quality – the ability to profoundly affect people throughout time.

Taruskin argues that this is achieved by artists inserting their own context into the interpretation of the work. This paper explores how this is achieved through the staging of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, demonstrating that the reinterpretative tools used by directors are the same as those employed by the Regietheater movement, a form of co-authorship between director and composer, which has been popularised in contemporary productions of opera. By examining this, we discover how performing music from the past reflects and reveals the present values of society. This paper explores how this concept can be applied more broadly to Bach’s cantatas, expanding the idea of co-authorship to include not just the author and director, but also the film director and choreographer. In doing so, this research is presented alongside a film, in which the narrative is guided by Bach’s two cantatas Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut BWV 199 and Christ lag in Todes Banden BWV 4. A filmed commentary accompanies the film, exploring the creative process and the contextual values revealed through this interpretation.