About the work
Passion is a musical by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) with a book by James Lapine, premiered on Broadway in 1994. Based on the Italian film Passione d'amore, it won the Tony Award for Best Musical. It is one of Sondheim's most intimate and uncompromising works.
Plot
In nineteenth-century Italy, the handsome officer Giorgio carries on a passionate affair with the married Clara. Transferred to a remote military post, he meets Fosca, the sickly, plain cousin of his commanding officer. Fosca's obsessive, unconditional love at first repels Giorgio, but her steadfastness and the depth of her feeling gradually transform him. What begins as revulsion becomes a shattering experience of true, all-consuming love.
Cultural significance
Passion is Sondheim's shortest and most concentrated work, almost without pause and through-composed, and is regarded as his most radical engagement with the nature of love. The demanding, densely woven score makes high demands. The work still polarises—celebrated as a deeply moving masterpiece and at the same time debated for its dark uncompromisingness—and is among the most fascinating creations of American musical theatre.