Othmar Weis

Othmar Weis (born April 21, 1770 as Georg Weis in Bad Bayersoien , † January 26, 1843 in Jesenwang ) was a German Benedictine priest . He became known as the author of a completely new version of the Oberammergau Passion Play , which, with several major revisions, still forms the basis of today's performances.

Life

Georg Weis was born on April 21, 1770 in Bad Bayersoien , a village in the Ammergau Alps . In 1788 he graduated from the (today's) Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich . He then completed the mandatory two-year basic course (= philosophy) at the adjoining lyceum. In 1791 he received the monastery name Othmar during his profession in the Benedictine monastery Ettal . After studying at the University of Ingolstadt , Father Othmar Weis became head of the Ettal Abbey School for particularly gifted students.

After the secularization and the associated dissolution of the Ettal monastery in 1803, Father Othmar Weis continued to work as a teacher. a. in Oberau , where the later pastor of Oberammergau, Joseph Alois Daisenberger, was one of his students.

Father Othmar Weis later became pastor in Jesenwang , where he died on January 26, 1843.

plant

In 1770 the Passion Play was generally banned in Bavaria. For 1780 and the following decades, Oberammergau had received an exceptional privilege for performances. After Maximilian von Montgelas revoked this privilege, the Passion Play could not take place in 1810.

At the request of the Oberammergau residents, Father Othmar Weis wrote a new text version in prose for the Passion Play, which was strongly based on the Gospels and emphasized the fundamental idea of ​​reconciliation. The Oberammergau teacher Rochus Dedler (1779–1822) wrote the incidental music for this text version .

In 1811, Oberammergau was given permission to perform this version of the Passion Play again. Father Othmar Weis directed the performance himself. In 1850 and 1860, Father Othmar's former pupil Joseph Alois Daisenberger revised and added to the text by Father Othmar Weis. Even after further changes and additions in the 20th and 21st centuries, the text version by Weis and Daisenberger still forms the basis of today's performances.

In memory of the lyricist of the Passion Play, the street in Oberammergau on which the Passion Play Theater is located is named Othmar-Weis-Straße.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Leitschuh: The matriculations of the upper classes of the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , 4 vol., Munich 1970–1976; Vol. 3, p. 186.
2. ^ The Passion Play in the 19th Century. (No longer available online.) In: www.passionsspiele2010.de. Archived from the original on October 10, 2011 ; Retrieved September 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Enlightenment - Oberammergau before the end. In: Oberammergau - Four centuries of wrestling with passion. Bayerischer Rundfunk , accessed on September 14, 2013 . 
4. ↑ The text of the Passion Play. (No longer available online.) In: www.passionsspiele2010.de. Archived from the original on October 10, 2011 ; Retrieved September 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.