Oberammergau

The train ride from Innsbruck through Garmisch to Oberammergau, Germany, climbing through and across the beautiful snow-covered alpine scenery was the most spectacular of this trip, hands down.  Wanna do it again just because…  I love the rail systems in Europe – we had Eurail passes for Germany and Austria (and it cost me a whopping 4.10 euro to cross over into Slovakia, round trip) and could easily get wherever we were going on any particular day, with amazingly short waits at any station.  On this trip I had to change trains at Murnau, a couple of stops north of Garmisch.  Road a small local train for almost an hour over to the end of its line at Oberammergau (the track literally ended about a meter from where the train stopped).

Oberammergau is a beautiful little burg famous for a couple of things.  One, it is filled with amazingly skilled craftsmen (and women) who do wood carvings – everything from life-size statues to tiny intricate Christmas ornaments, religious figurines to gnomes, cuckoo clocks to crosses.  I very nearly bought one of the clocks, and would have except my last day there was a Sunday and almost everything was closed up. 

The town is surrounded by mountains like most in this southern part of Germany, although the peaks were not quite so high.  The most dominating crag as seen below (first shot is heavily zoomed) also has a cross mounted on its summit.  I was told you can walk (hike, climb?) to the summit in the summer, but the trail is still choked with snow or wet and slippery so inaccessible at the moment.

I spent much time wandering the streets, looking at the wonderfully quaint architecture and highly decorative houses and shop buildings you can see in the photos.  Oberammergau is also well-known for its many buildings with their fantastic tromp l’oeil images that are painted onto their facades.  The multitude of wood shops were amazing – much wow overload.  Food as usual was awesome here as everywhere else we’ve been, whether it was a simple hotel eatery popular with locals and visitor alike, or the ever-popular and always busy Cafe Paradise, with more seating out on the sidewalk than inside.

A quick peek into the local church which dominates the local landscape (St. Peter and Paul) revealed another gorgeous place of prayer and worship.  This beautiful baroque-period church escaped war damage as did most of Oberammergau.

The other major thing Oberammergau is famous for is their Passion Play.  This highly elaborate and expansive production is only performed once every decade.  And they have been doing it since 1634, nearly four centuries!

The town’s residents vowed that if God spared them from the effects of the bubonic plague ravaging across Europe, they would produce a play every ten years thereafter for all time depicting the life and death of Jesus.  Very few people died and villagers believed they were spared  – they kept their part of the vow and the play was first performed in 1634.  The most recent performance was in 2010.  The play is staged every ten years, in the final year of each decade – so the next one will be in 2020 (mark your travel calendars).  However, additional performances are also sometimes worked into the mix, such as the one in 1934 to commemorate the 300-year anniversary of the original vow, and again in 1984 in celebration of the 350th anniversary of that first play in 1634. 

There were at least two years in which the scheduled performance did not take place.  In 1770, Oberammergau was informed that all passion plays in Bavaria had been banned by order of the Ecclesiastical Council at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church, and so the performance was cancelled.  In 1780, the play was renamed The Old and New Testament, and having been assured that the play was “purged of all objectionable and unseemly matter” the performance of the play was approved.  By 1830, the Catholic Church had succeeded in halting the performance of all other passion plays in Bavaria – only the Oberammergau play remained.

In 1940 World War II also forced cancellation of the year’s scheduled performance.

The Passion Play, now performed repeatedly over the course of five months during the first year of each decade, involves over 2,000 performers, musicians, and stage technicians – over half the town as all are residents of Oberammergau.  The play comprises spoken dramatic text, musical and choral accompaniment and tableaux vivants, scenes from the Old Testament depicted for the audience by motionless actors accompanied by verbal description.  And it is a long performance – the play has a running time of about seven hours, with a meal break provided.  Audiences have come from all over the world throughout the centuries to experience the production.

In 1890 a new, purpose-built theatre was built and it would have looked much as it does today.  The theatre was enlarged in time for the 1930 and 1934 seasons and while it was considered ugly and uncomfortable it was praised for its superb acoustics and sight of the stage.  Following the 1990 production both the interior and façade of the theatre were renovated and the stage mechanics modernized.  Today, if still unassuming and lacking the opulence common in other venues, the theatre can seat an audience of over 4700 (see photo below).

The economic impact of the Passion Play upon Oberammergau cannot be underestimated, as is witnessed by the local expression “Die Passion zahlt” which translates to “The Passion Play will pay for it.”  

In another interesting note, the mistress of the lovely local guesthouse I was staying in (Gastehaus Richter) had some major bragging rights – her son, Andreas Richter, played the lead role of Jesus in last year’s performances.

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Long dry spell, posting-wise!  Back at Shindand and hitting work hard (or work is hitting hard) – usually at my desk until after 10pm every night of the week.  Excuses!  Two more R&R posts and then back to the busyness, craziness of FOB Shindand.  No, wait – Shindand Airbase. 🙂