You’re awarded an unlimited amount of dollars to plan your dream vacation. Where would you go and why?
If in the past someone gave me a lot of money to travel, I would say I would like to see the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. Although I did not receive such a gift, I did go in August 2022 to make a long time wish come true.
Wachau Valley
Before reaching Oberammergau, my friends and I took a river cruise on the Danube River and stopped in towns in Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and Germany. The towns and cities on the banks of the river were very picturesque but not musically ʻalive.’ As a whole, the professional musicians and major orchestras, such as the Vienna Philharmonic and Budapest Philharmonic, were on their summer breaks.
After a week of cruising, we arrived in Oberammergau to see the Passion Play. The play, which is five hours long, portrays the last phase of Jesus’ life on Earth. It is like an opera with spoken dialogue. Although it was purely amateur, the performance was spectacular and inspirational…musically, technically and dramatically. The cast and crew were all (with a few exceptions) from Oberammergau, and it involved 2000 singers, instrumentalists, actors, stagehands, and backstage crew.
Passion Play Theatre
In 1820, the first play was performed in the town’s graveyard where victims of the bubonic plague were buried. Today, a modern facility has been built to seat 5,200 per performance. In 2022, the anticipated audience count from May to October was 750,000. The next play will be presented in 2030.
This year’s presentation of the Passion Play was significant, because when it originated in 1634, the village leaders promised God that Oberammergau will continue to stage the play so that it will never again be stricken by the plague that killed many of its villagers. Perhaps in the future, they may add that the town was saved from Covid-19 and other pandemics by staging this production.
Saffron
In addition to the play and river cruise, I enjoyed meeting people. One of them was an Englishman, who is a saffron farmer in Wachau Valley, Austria. Besides farming and lecturing about the process of making the saffron spice, he plays the ʻukulele with his young sons. He loves Hawaiian music, knows about Kamaka ʻukuleles, and feels that Jake Shimabukuro is fantastic…”It’s a small world after all.”
What I have learned by traveling is to be patient and kind. I would wish the world will make this a habit so that we will have peace and happiness throughout our beautiful planet.