La Passion selon Marc. Une Passion après Auschwitz (The Passion According to Mark. A Passion after Auschwitz), premiered in April 2017. The project was commissioned to French composer Michaël Levinas by the Swiss association «Musique pour un temps présent», as part of the events commemorating the 500th anniversary of Luther’s reform. This original oratorio is not only a reinterpretation or a mere revisitation of the Passion – what the many references to Bach’s Passions could lead to believe, it painfully faces, indeed, the irreconciliable nature of the Passion and the Holocaust.

What is the object of this Passion after Auschwitz, which revolves around what can link two musical traditions, two religions that have been separated by barbarism. Which music, which tradition, which language can the composer use in order to express this double silence, both historical and theological, both human and divine ? It is no coincidence that Levinas chose to start his score with a quote by his father, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, from his book Otherwise than being and beyond essence : so he could pay tribute to the «six million people who were murdered by the Nazis», but also to the «millions of human beings all over the world, regardless of their origin or religion, who suffer from the same hatred of the other, of the same antisemitism.»