Sub Pontio Pilato
Erling Wold
About this work:
Sub Pontio Pilato is an historical fantasy that takes elements from the legend and history surrounding Pontius Pilate, a figure who rose from a minor position in the Roman bureaucracy to become a person of immense importance in Western thought. Even though there is only the smallest historical evidence of his existence, he has been the subject of thousands of writings from the middle ages, where nearly all Western art related to explication of Christian theology, through modern times, for example, Bulgakov's Master and Margarita and more recently, Anne Wroe's very complete biography of him as an "invented man."
Some legends deal with his punishment. As the person who sentenced Christ to death, he sometimes dies sad, broken and exiled. However, most writers seem to be concerned with his redemption. A number of these legends relate his conversion and martyrdom. In the Ethiopian church this is taken to an extreme: he and his wife Procula are saints. This redemption springs from two places. The first is simple, if Pilate can be redeemed, anyone of us can. The second is more insidious: the Christian Church, originally intended for the Jews, was not accepted by them and eventually ended up ironically as the official religion of Rome. The Roman church was not interested in having Pilate, a son of Rome, responsible for the crucifixion. They officially shifted the blame to the Jews and emphasized Pilate's coercion, the washing of his hands, and used this to further what became an extreme anti-Jewish stance, the end result of which has become all-too-familiar in recent history.
In the opera, all of these streams coexist. The piece starts at the end of his life as his young slave Ptolemaeus helps Pilate slit his wrists. The first half of the piece takes place in a dream-like space as he slowly dies. He is surrounded by a whirlwind of real events, children playing, reflections on his favorite philosophers, his own thoughts on life and an hallucinatory flashbacks of events that led to his downfall. A personification of history warns Pilate of his historical fate. He dies and is resurrected. Pilate and Procula are dressed as saints as the chorus sings the Credo and the Church silences the Jews. The piece ends on a quiet note: during the 1970s, an Ethiopian soldier and a Russian advisor discuss Pilate's place among the saints of the Abyssinian Orthodox Church.
Version: English
Year composed: 2002
Duration: 02:15:80
Ensemble type: Opera/Theater:Opera, More than One Act, with Chorus
Instrumentation: