Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle was an outstanding event. As before with the St Matthew Passion, star director Peter Sellars succeeded in creating a staging which made the spiritual and dramatic content of the Passion story even more intensive. The New York Times also praised the “brilliant and energetic” playing of the orchestra, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the “haunting, almost unsurpassable singing of all those involved.” The top-class ensemble of singers was led by Mark Padmore, one of the leading Evangelist interpreters of our day.