Above: “The Passenger.”

From whatever angle you approach it, tackling a subject as sensitive as the Holocaust in opera format takes courage. That is the case with Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), for whom the work served as a form of catharsis and conciliation. Born in Poland, the young composer escaped on foot from the German invasion to what was then the Soviet Union, where he lived until his death without ever seeing the premiere of the first of his seven operas, “The Passenger,” which was delayed for political reasons. (The work was finally performed in a concert version in Moscow in 2006 and onstage in Bregenz in 2010.) Weinberg’s parents and a sister were killed by the Nazis, and the semi-autobiographical story of Zofia Posmysz was the perfect vehicle into which to pour his suffering. His was a score “written with the heart’s blood,” according to his friend and mentor Dmitri Shostakovich.

The events of “The Passenger” begin with the nightmarish memory of a voice–that of Zofia’s guard at Auschwitz, whom she thought she had heard in Paris a decade after prisoners were freed from the death camp. On a ship bound for Brazil in the late 1950s, Zofia orchestrates an encounter between Liese, a former Auschwitz guard and the new wife of a German consul, and a strange passenger who is none other than Marta, Liese’s former prisoner, and the object of a love-hate relationship at the concentration camp. Liese is forced to confront her past and examine her “benevolence” toward a victim she manipulated with certain erotic fascination, masked as admiration of the prisoner’s unyielding dignity. It is a chilling cat-and-mouse game in which the loser was Tadeusz, also a prisoner and Marta’s one-time fiancé.

“The Passenger” was first a radio play, then a book, then a film, which Andrzej Munk left unfinished in 1961, when he died in a traffic accident, and which Witold Lesiewicz completed as best he could in 1963. In 1967-68, “The Passenger” took shape as an opera with a libretto by Alexander Medvedev, who employed seven languages to portray the diverse nationalities crowded together in the camp. Medvedev’s vision is wide-ranging, as he depicts a Jew (composer Weinberg), a Catholic (author Posmysz) and a broad spectrum of young people, elderly inmates, Russians, Czechs, Frenchmen and Poles, all thrust into a diabolical extermination machine.

Half a century after it was composed, the challenge of staging the opera is as enormous as it was then, and the musical results, if uneven, have an unforgettable impact on the spectator. Weinberg’s music is that of his time. (In the shadow of Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, he is a towering figure in Soviet music.) He draws from an eclectic cocktail, and the influence of the two composers, as well as of Leos Janacek, Bela Bartok, Kurt Weill and even Benjamin Britten–the Britten of the contemporaneous “War Requiem”–is evident in this powerful indictment of authoritarianism and its henchmen, bureaucrats of death. Trapped in this spider’s web, victims and victimizers are passengers in a nightmare.

Musically, the most successful sections are the most intimate: the duos and solos that evoke the homeland and the home, with minimal orchestral accompaniment, as well as the chorus’ commentary in the style of Greek tragedy. More predictable are the abrasive moments of dissonant winds and percussion, and the scenes at the barracks, where less would have been more in terms of length. The climax comes in the second act, when the violinist Tadeusz is forced to play for Nazi authorities the camp commander’s favorite waltz (a kind of mad “Ach du lieber Augustin,” perversely upended) and instead plays Bach’s sublime “Chaconne.” Defying the “banality of evil” with one of the essentials of German and world music costs him his life. In that bestial world, truth provokes even more rage.

David Pountney’s production, with Johan Engels’ extraordinary sets, is primarily responsible for the success of “The Passenger.” Fortunately, the British director does not resort to embellishments, but getss straight to the point. He brings out the opera’s virtues and props up its few weaknesses, to the point that it is difficult to imagine a better version. In this sense, Pountney erases all possible reservations about the Weinberg-Mededev partnership, sometimes so absorbed in capturing the pain that they sacrifice the distance necessary to make a concise and effective product.

This production, which made its world premiere in Bregenz, Austria, has traveled to Warsaw, Poland; London; Madrid; Houston; Chicago; and New York; and arrives at the Florida Grand Opera (a Knight Arts grantee) with the same relevance it had on opening night. The stage is divided into two sets: the present (1959) and the past (1945). The former shows the ship’s luminous deck, and the latter a hellish depiction of the camp, with barrack huts, wagons, railroad tracks and crematory ovens. The only connection between both worlds is a meaningful, terrifying chimney. The contrast between light and shadow creates an admirable interplay from which the ghosts of a too-recent past emerge, summoned by an encounter as coincidental as it was preordained.

A solid cast is another mainstay of the production, especially, in the role of Marta, Adrienn Miksch, whose vocal purity contrasts with the horror that surrounds her. In her radiant clarity and powerful projection, she embodies the opera’s luminous side. Daveda Karanas as Liese is compelling in an ambivalent, thankless role. Tenor David Danholt as her husband, Walter the consul, performed at the same high level. Honorable mentions go to Anna Gorbachyova, who, as Katya, performed the Russian song “You, My Little Valley,” and Kathryn Day, who displayed rich sonority. The male cast was blessed with John Moore’s lovable Tadeusz, and a chorus prepared by Katherine Kozak framed the drama with due competence. Steven Mercurio conducted attentively and provided the respites that allowed the voices to be heard over an orchestra that periodically burst in to shake up, startle, emphasize or accompany the perfomances with sweetness or compassion.

“The Passenger” is a valuable addition to the postwar operatic repertoire, and the Florida Grand Opera is taking a major step forward by presenting a production of such magnitude. In the tranquil epilogue, the camp commander’s screeching waltz, which pounds relentlessly on our memory, gives way to Marta’s riverbank elegy (“If we forget them, we will all be extinguished”), while Liese looks at her, devastated. There are no victors or vanquished; war tears loves and lovers apart.

“The Passenger” provides the occasion to reflect once more on a “never again” that will safeguard the humanity of a species under constant danger of self-destruction. The final silence ominously prevails over well-deserved applause for a superlative cast.

The Florida Grand Opera’s production of “The Passenger” runs through April 9 at the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.