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The town of Oberammergau vowed that if God were to spare them from the effects of the bubonic plague ravaging the region, they would perform a play every ten years depicting the life and death of Jesus. The adult death rate slowly subsided to one in the month of July 1633. The villagers believed they were spared after they kept their part of the vow when the play was first performed in 1634. The most recent performance was in 2000.

The play, now performed repeatedly over the course of five months, during the last year of each decade, involves over 2,000 performers, musicians and stage technicians, all of whom are residents of the village. The play comprises spoken dramatic text, musical and choral accompaniment and tableaux vivants. The tableaux vivants are scenes from the Old Testament depicted for the audience by motionless actors accompanied by verbal description. These scenes are the basis for the typology, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, of the play. They include a scene of King Ahasuerus rejecting Vashti in favor of Esther, the brothers selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt and Moses raising up the bronze serpent in the wilderness. Each scene precedes that section of the play that is considered to be prefigured by the scene. The three tableaux mentioned are presented to the audience as prefiguring Christianity superseding Judaism, Judas selling information on the location of Jesus, and the crucifixion.

The Oberammergau play has a running time of approximately seven hours. A meal is served during the intermission of the play. Audiences come from all over the world.  Admission fees were first charged in 1790. Since 1930, the number of visitors has ranged from 420,000 to 530,000.

 

Several tour packages are available to see this production.  Speak to a Trip Representative for more information, dates and prices.

 

Sound of Music Tour (10 days) includes Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Neuschwanstein, Oberammergau and Munich.

Treasures of Austria Tour (11 days) includes Italy and Switzerland featuring Zurich, Liechtenstein, Innsbruck, Oberammergau, Munich, Salzburg, Verona, Venice, Milan and Lucerne.

Best of Germany Tour (13 days) features Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Nuremberg, Rothenburg, Munich, Oberammergau, Black Forest, Baden-Baden and Heidelberg.

Best of Germany and Austria Tour (15 days) includes Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Wurzburg, Rothenburg, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Innsbruck, Oberammergau, Freiburg and Heidelberg.

The Grand Alpine Tour (16 days) features Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and  Austria.

Great European Tour (31 days) includes England, France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Belgium.

The play runs from

May 15—October 3, 2010