J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen staged a new production of Jiří Teml’s opera Kocour v botách (Puss in Boots). This children’s opera, composed in 2008/9 to a libretto by Jan Tůma and Eliška Hrubá-Toperczerová, consists of 6 scenes and received its premiere in 2009 at the Smetana’s Litomyšl music festival by the Czech Philharmonic Children’s Choir. This year, on 20 February … Read more
On 19 February a new production of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Affair received its premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Its authors are the director David Hermann and the scenographer Christof Hetzer, who had already created the productions of Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (The Little Match Girl) by Helmut Lachenman and Oresteia by Iannis Xenakis … Read more
Semperoper Dresden created a new production of a one-act chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis), which had been composed by Viktor Ullmann between 1944-45 in the concentration camp Theresienstadt, less than 100 km away from Dresden. The premiere took place on 19 February in a less formal environment of the so-called Semper 2, a chamber … Read more
On 13th February the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck premiered a new production of Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair. It was also the very first performance of the work on the stage of this Austrian opera house in history. The members of the creative team, who already worked together on the successful production of Eugen d’Albert’s Tiefland (1903) two years ago, … Read more
Ondřej Kyas’s (*1979) Chamber Symphony no. 2 for oboe, piano, percussion and strings received its world premiere on this year’s first concert of the Brno-based Ensemble Opera Diversa, which took place on 10th February at the Reduta theatre in Brno. A part of the ceremony was the presentation of the ensemble’s very first CD which consists of Jan Novák’s oboe … Read more
Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa received its premiere on 7th February at the German opera house Landestheater Altenburg. The production was premiered and given three reprises with a great success last year at the partner theater Bühnen der Stadt Gera. These two artistic houses merged together in 1995 and nowadays exist under the joint name Theater und Philharmonie Thüringen; … Read more
During a concert called “Jazz Inspirations”, which took place on 4th February at Reduta concert hall in Olomouc, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra gave world premiere of Zdenek Merta’s Century Dance. The trumpet concerto, which the author describes as a classic crossover piece, is in fact a symphonic transcription of five distinctive dances of the 20th century. The movements are … Read more
The Prague Chamber Orchestra gave the world premiere of Pražské divertimento (Prague Divertimento) by the composer and visual artist Vladimír Franz. Apart from this four-movement piece, the program of the concert, which took place on 2nd February at the Rudolfinum’s DvořákHall, included music by J. Haydn, W. A. Mozart and P. I. Tchaikovsky. “Prague. A city both magical … Read more
Three new pieces by three Czech composers received their world premiere on this year’s first concert of Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra’s “New Horizons” subscription series. During the performance of the works by Martin Kumžák, Petr Wajsar and Jan Kučera, which are all written for a string quartet and orchestra, was the Radio orchestra accompanied by the Prague-based crossover … Read more
On Sunday 31st January the long-awaited world premiere of the opera South Pole by the Czech composer Miroslav Srnka took place at the Bavarian State Opera. The event, referred to as being one of the peaks of this year’s Munich opera season, also represents a crucial moment in the context of Czech contemporary music’s history, the last Czech … Read more
