3-034-553 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The audience at the Passion Play, Ober-Ammergau, 1871. In '...the rustic village in the highlands of Bavaria, the ancient institution of a public dramatic performance to illustrate an important passage of Bible history...is still kept up by the peasantry of that neighbourhood, with the sanction of their clergy...this curious exhibition...has been repeated every ten years since 1633,...in pursuance of an arrangement made for a perpetual thanksgiving, when the village was delivered from the further ravages of the plague...The people, many of whom are wood-carvers and have an artistic turn of mind, take this matter very seriously, and attend the performance as a religious duty. Nearly 500 persons are engaged in it - including the "supernumeraries" who appear as soldiers, servants, or Jews of Galilee or Jerusalem, and the chorus of singers. Our Illustration shows the mixed character of the audience - comprising many foreigners, Germans, English, and others, citizens of Munich, and country people of Bavaria and the Tyrol. The part of Our Saviour is enacted by Joseph Mair, a wood-carver...The play begins at eight o'clock in the morning, and ends at five in the afternoon, but with an hour's interval for dinner at noon'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.