EUROPE: POLAND: 400-ACTOR PASSION PLAY LIGHTED WITH LASERS

THENEWS.PL REPORT: Some 400 actors, a choir of 300 singers and a symphony orchestra placed on five stages take part in tonight’s passion play in the grounds of the Służewiec Horse Race Track in Warsaw.

Gigantic sets and laser lights will be visible from 300 metres and the organizers expect up to half a million people.

The event, previously held in Poznan for the last ten years, is the brainchild of script-writer, director and producer Artur Piotrowski, who says said the idea is to prepare the participants and spectators for the Holy Week, the last week of Lent, and reflect on the mystery of the Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.

The reason he moved the passion play to Warsaw is to join in the preparations for the beatification of Pope John Paul II on 1 May.

In the final scene of the 80-minute long performance, the Pope appears in the gates of Jerusalem and, surrounded by angels, proceeds to meet the resurrected Christ, to the accompaniment of John Debney’s ‘Resurrection’ from Mel Gibson’s film The Passion.

Passion plays have a long-standing tradition in several places in Poland, notably the sanctuary of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska near Krakow, Kalwaria Pacławska and the Pallotines’ Seminary in Ołtarzew near Warsaw. (mk)

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