Year of the Great Passion Play

he most famous religious

Tdrama in the world, a once-ina-decade event, is expected to make 2022 a big year for tourism in Alpine Europe. Many tour operators will be packaging the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany, with visits to neighboring countries, including Switzerland. The Swiss city of St. Gallen is only two hours and 40 minutes from the Bavarian village of Oberammergau, while Lucerne is just over four hours away.

Originally scheduled for 2020, the Oberammergau Passion Play had to be moved to 2022 because of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The entirely local production, featuring an amateur cast of 2,000-plus, will be presented five days a week from May 14 to October 2 in a 4,500-seat theater with a massive open-air stage and a roof that shelters the audience. Nearly half the village of 5,500 (including hundreds of children) will take part in the 42nd installment of the play, which was first presented in 1634.

Though the epic drama is performed in German, a text in English is provided to playgoers, and two large monitors display English subtitles with close-ups of the actors. However, the sheer power and pathos of the story of Christ’s last days on earth—from the entry into Jerusalem to the Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection— transcends any language barrier.

The Passion Play can easily be combined with visits to Zurich, Bern, Interlaken, the Emmental Valley, Jungfrau Region and other destinations in Switzerland. Before or after the play, you might consider a train or cable car adventure in the Swiss Alps, like the aerial cableway up the mighty Schilthorn in the Bernese Oberland or Gotthard Panorama Express rail-boat journey between Lucerne and Lugano. Round out your tour offering with stops in the smaller cities in Switzerland’s German-, French- and Italianspeaking regions.

The allure of Oberammergau’s Passion Play, along with the pent-up demand for travel to Europe, is sure to be a boon to tourism in Switzerland and its Alpine neighbors in 2022.

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