Passažirka di Mieczysław Weinberg: opera russa e tematica ebraica nella ‘scuola šostakoviciana’

Abstract

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), a Jewish composer born in Poland from a Russian family, took refuge in the Soviet Union during the World War II. He experienced repression due to his origins and family relationships and made the Shoah a pillar of his own poetics, raising the lament for the victims to a universal dimension. This article is dedicated to his main opera, The Passenger (1967-68), based on a subject by the Polish writer Zofia Posmysz, an opera, which brings the composer close to the artistic interests of his older colleague Dmitry Shostakovich, as well as to other Soviet composers of his generation, such as Revol Bunin and Veniamin Fleyshman. Its subject matter turns out to be particularly delicate in coeval Russia, while the fortune of the opera reveals the difficulty of post-Soviet authorities in dealing with the historical moment treated by Weinberg’s masterpiece.