Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John ion with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle was one of the outstanding events of the past season. As before with the St Matthew ion, star director Peter Sellars succeeded in creating a staging which made the spiritual and dramatic content of the ion 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 unsurable singing of all those involved.”