by Daniel Hathaway
When Apollo’s Fire presents its four area performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion later this week under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell, the burden of storytelling will fall to tenor Nicholas Phan.
Although Bach assigned individual parts to singers who will take the roles of Jesus, Pilate, and other individual characters, Phan will narrate the Passion of Jesus Christ from the Gospel According to John. Bach’s two extant Passion settings are the closest the composer came to writing opera, and Apollo’s Fire promises to offer an especially dramatic version of the St. John.
