Interview with Hugh M. McElyea

Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer

In this Bonhoeffer in the Arts Series episode, host Rob Schenck talks with composer and librettist Hugh M. McElyea, whose staged oratorio, “Tenebrae - The Passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer" explores the inner world of our Institute’s namesake.

Hugh grew up in Central Florida in an abjectly racist culture. However, his college experience, later travels in the Air Force, and eventually, his work as a pianist in New York City would help him shed his bigotry.

Having read Bonhoeffer in the late 60s during the height of the civil rights struggle, Bonhoeffer's moral courage made a lasting impression on Hugh. Those memories later inspired him to depict the Nazi resister and martyr in a musical drama, using Bonhoeffer's relationship and prison correspondence with fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer as a device to delve deep into the inner thoughts of both.

Hugh styled Tenebrae along the lines of the ancient candlelight Passiontide service by the same name. Using twenty voices backed by twenty musicians, with two actors portraying Dietrich and Maria writing to each other as he sits in Tegel Prison, Hugh brings out a rarely examined emotional dimension to Dietrich.