11 - Reconstructing a Better Version of The Greek Passion

Summary

Next to Dvořák and Janáček among Charles Mackerras's great passions for Czech music was Bohuslav Martinů. Knowledge of this fact gave me the courage in March 1995 to visit Sir Charles in the hotel Radisson Blu in Basle and present him with a copy of my recently published catalogue of the Martinů autographs in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basle. Astonishingly, he received me, though he didn't know me from Adam (and furthermore I had unwittingly awoken him from his afternoon rest before the concert). In the catalogue he was immediately taken by the fact that it contained several unknown sections of Martinů's The Greek Passion, from the discarded first version of this opera. Three months later he wrote to me:

I have been asked to conduct a performance of The Greek Passion in a production by the young Australian director Baz Luhrman. The production will first be shown at the Bregenz Festival, then at the Edinburgh Festival, and finally at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. As we discussed at the time, there are many faults in the dramaturgy of this opera and we are all keen to try and construct a version of the opera which will improve the dramatic flow. From what I understood from you at our meeting, you have found certain passages of music which Martinů discarded for one reason or another, and in the course of your researches you have also discovered several sheets of Martinů's autograph which might be of use to us in the reconstructing of a better version of The Greek Passion. Both Dr Alfred Wopmann of the Bregenz Festival and Mr Nicholas Payne of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden will shortly be in touch with you to see if you could possibly help us in this respect. […] I look forward to hearing from you as to whether you would be willing to co-operate with us in what looks like being an extremely interesting venture.

Soon afterwards Dr Alfred Wopmann did indeed visit me in Basle, and at his request I began looking for the many tens of missing pages from the first version of The Greek Passion.