Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 bits of context as Vancouver Bach Choir marks 300th anniversary of Bach's St John Passion

Choir to be joined by soloists Magali Simard-Galdès, Krisztina Szabó, Asitha Tennekoon, Neil Craighead, and members of the VSO

By Emily Lyth

Soprano Magali Simard-Galdès. Photo by Marï Photographe

Tenor Asitha Tennekoon.

Vancouver Bach Choir and members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra present Bach’s St John Passion at the Orpheum on March 30 at 7:30 pm

EASTER IS RIGHT around the corner, and arriving hand-in-hand with it is the Vancouver Bach Choir’s performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion at the Orpheum. This year marks the drama-infused oratorio’s 300th anniversary, which is no small feat.

The Vancouver Bach Choir is joined for the concert by soprano Magali Simard-Galdès, mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó, tenor Asitha Tennekoon, and bass Neil Craighead. Members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will provide a musical backdrop for the harmonious array of voices.

The choir’s music director Leslie Dala is conducting the monumental concert on the evening of March 30. Ahead of the event, here are five facts about the work to provide some context on its history and happenings.

Bass Neil Craighead.

#1

St John Passion is historically an Easter affair

German musician Bach composed the oratorio during the Baroque period, and it was first performed at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, Germany on April 7, 1724—Good Friday.

“An oratorio is like a podcast drama,” explains the Vancouver Bach Choir’s associate conductor Cathrie Yuen in a release. “It is storytelling without the fancy costumes and sets. It’s essentially an unstaged opera. In the past where opera was not available during the time of Lent, oratorio became a popular form of entertainment.”

Emotion and expression are indeed plentiful in St John Passion.

#2

Everyone has a part to play

The piece, which clocks in at nearly two hours long, tells the story of the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus outlined in the Gospel of John, and each voice helps the narrative along. Tenor Tennekoon, for instance, sings the role of the Evangelist, while bass Craighead sings the role of Jesus. The Vancouver Bach Choir as a whole alternates between several roles: everything from Pontius Pilate (who ordered Jesus’s crucifixion) to an angry crowd.

Krisztina Szabó. Photo by Bo Huang

#3

The opera singers have performance history together

Since all four soloists in the upcoming concert have been established on the Canadian opera scene for quite some time now, they’re bound to have collaborated before. Szabó and Simard-Galdès sang together most recently in November 2023 with Orchestre symphonique de Québec for Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor, led by German conductor Clemens Schuldt.

In 2018, all four artists performed in ensembles with Toronto’s Tapestry Opera and received Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for their work: Tennekoon and Simard-Galdès were in a co-production of The Overcoat with Canadian Stage and Vancouver Opera, while Szabó and Craighead both sang in Oksana G., a world premiere by librettist Colleen Murphy.

Coming up, Szabó and Tennekoon are set to perform together in a Toronto-based Opera 5 production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw this June.

#4

St John Passion is a familiar work for Szabó

Bach’s oratorio is in the Hungarian-Canadian mezzo-soprano’s repertoire; she last performed it with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in March 2023 at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto. Alongside her performance career, Szabó is also an assistant professor of voice and opera at the UBC School of Music.

#5

It took decades for Bach’s works to skyrocket in popularity

At the time of his death in Leipzig in 1750, Bach was 65 and had produced a remarkable body of work while performing primarily as a church musician. But his works were neglected after his passing due to their relatively old-fashioned style in a time of evolution. It wasn’t until a full century later that his pieces gained traction, and organizations were established to collect and publish them. Nowadays, he is regarded among the greatest Western composers of all time. 

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