The daily gazette., 1880-06-17
Oberanamersau.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE
CLOSING SCENES OF THE PASSION

PLAY.
Various particulars of the Ober-
ammergau Passion Play have been
published, but the following descrip-
ton of the crucifixion and resurrec-
tion by a correspondent of the New
York Evening Post is additional to
other reports =
AS the curtain then rises to the
thirteen scene we hear the strokes
of the lash. Christ in the centre is
bound to pillar. His robe has been
taken from him, and the blood falls
from his wounds. Like Titiap's
Ecce Homo of the Louvre he is 81
lent, but his face is marked with pain
and anguish. And now they lift
hideous crown of thorns, and plant
ing it on his forehead, cross two
bending sticks above his head and
force the crown still tighter. In his
hand they place reed, and about
his shoulders they hang the scarlet
robe, calling him their king. The
audience are breathless and excited,
for it seems like actual suffering he
is bearing. Thus the jeering soldiers
lead him forth to seek his cross and
fellow-condemned.
While the chorus in the fourteenth
act is still on the stage, the voices of
a multitude are heard to sing with
in, "Barabbas be from bonds set
free," and the chorus in a striking
antiphone makes answer, "No, Jesus
be from fetters free" Singing
again the dirge over the fate of Jer-
usalem they disappear, and the pop
ulace come streaming through the
by-streets to Pilates palace. PLATE
has sent for Barabbas-an ugly, lit
tie, weazened form, clad ina prison
er's garment-and, placing him by
the side of the Galilean, he thinks
the contrast between the divine and
the sinful man will strike the people
and save the innocent man. But
they cry for the release of Barabbas
and at the name of Jesus shout,
"Crucify Him to the cross!" With
their victim they disappear through
the city streets, but soon a greater
multitude appears and slowly winds
out upon the open stage. When in
the first scene they entered they
were casting branches in the way of
the man of God, but now between
two thieves Christ falters beneath
the weight of a heavy cross. His
brow is streaming with blood, and
when before us he falls upon his
knees exhausted one of the burly
executioners at his side seeing Simon
of Cyrene, who is idling near, seizes
him and makes him carry the load.
The Virgin Mary and the Magdalen
with st. June are following the sad
procession; the woman Veronica
coming forward proffers the hand
kerchief on which Christ wipes his
face, and the Roman cohort in their
cleaning armor, followed by their
captain upon a horse, and the fran
tic populace, push ON towards CAL
vary.
But before we see the final act of the
tragedy the chorus, dressed in black
mantles and white robes, chants the
last scene of the Passion. The cur
tain then rises while the executioners
raise the thieves bound to their cross
es from the ground. The last strokes
of the hammer are heard on the pierre
ing nails, and now between the thieves
they lift the greater cross with its
heavy burden. And then comes Mary
Msgdalene, who weeps at the foot of
it, and the Virgin, whose head and
form are bowed with grief, and whose
foot falters as she nears the spot
Jesus casts his eyes upon her and the
beloved John. He speaks with the
thief at his side, and lifting his eyes a
soft voice from the depth of his heart
utters the last syllables "Es ist voll-
bracht"-''It is finished" His head
falls upon his side, and amid death
like silence and painful reality his
spirit seems to have taken flight. =
Now Joseph of Arimathea comes with
permission to bury the dead, and the
soldiers who have been casting lots for
his raiment thrust spear into his side,
out of whose wound the blood streams
down. And when they have departed,
the descent, as Rubens has pictured it
in the Antwerp Cathedral, takes
place. Joseph of Arimathea, from
ladder behind the cross, lifts the
thorny crown from jesus head, and
with a wrench pulls out the heavy
nails and lets them fall upon the
ground. Nicodemus, on a ladder be-
low and in front, passes long linen
cloth about His breast and over the
arms of the cross, and receives the
lifeless body upon his shoulders. It's
then placed in winding-sheet, and
gathering it's folds they bear him to
the rock-hewn tomb, whence in later
scene Christ bursts the heavy gate,
and in glorious light vanishes before
the watch.
The sadness of every realistic ac-
ton, even to the drawing of the nails,
is now dispelled by the hallelujahs Of
the chorus. They sing Of Christ risen
and the life after death. and an inferior
tableau OF Paradise ends the play of the
Passion. 1t Is one of the most curious
of existing relics, before whose reality
the believing peasant folk fall upon their
knees and utter their aves, at which an
imaginative mind with its high ideality
cannot be shocked nor practical one
driven 10 harsh criticism. 1t 81 ems to
be filled from end to end, not " tn the
conceptions of Ammergauers OF neces-
sity crude, but of the mosters of paint
inc. Leonardo's "Last Supper" and
Rubens' "Descent from the Cross" were
far from being the only scenes thus con-
yerted, but from the copied costumes of
the Dore Bible to the vigorous action
and sublime conception OF Tintoretto's
large uCrucifiction," it seemed like the