The programme of the final concert of the 3-day Fokus Sport festival run by the Alte Oper Frankfurt included the composition Observing the Clouds by Martin Smolka. This piece from 2003, which, through its irregular and unpredictable rhythmical structure, expresses the dynamics of a badminton game, was performed on 12 March at the Alte Oper’s Great … Read more…
Ondřej Adámek’s new composition for airmachine, a musical instrument designed and created by the composer himself, and 15 players received its world premiere on 10 March during the Biennale Musiques en Scène contemporary arts festival in Lyon. Adámek has been experimenting with the various modes of the instrument’s construction since 2009. Made up of a wind tunnel … Read more…
On 10 March at the Zlín Congress Centre, Bohuslav Martinů Phlharmonic Orchestra premiered a new orchestral piece by Jiří Pavlica, a violinist and composer whose musical language, though oscillating between various genres, is influenced especially by folk music. The Moravian Dances orchestral suite, too, derives from folk dances from different Moravian regions (Haná, Moravian Slovakia, “odzemek” from … Read more…
On their concerts on March 9, 10 and 11 the Czech Philharmonic performed – as this season’s second world premiere of a piece by a Czech composer already – Miloš Bok’s Apocalypse in Kamenická Stráň. This monumental 50-minute long vocal-instrumental composition for mixed and children’s choir, four soloists and a large orchestra is in fact only the first … Read more…
Ondřej Štochl’s composition YIN – Nostalgia and Hope received its world premiere on 9 March at the Museum of Applied Arts of the Moravian Gallery by Brno Contemporary Orchestra. This piece for vibraphone and 12 instruments was on the programme of an evening called “Assimilation – Concert for people” together with music by Alvin Lucier, … Read more…
On 5 March the Austrian Oper Graz premiered a new production of The Greek Passion (1954-1959), Bohuslav Martinů’s opera masterpiece. One of the reasons for choosing this work particularly is without any doubt the topic of Martinů’s libretto, based on the novel of the same name by the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis, whose plot, depicting the … Read more…
On 28 February Janáček’s Jenůfa was for the first time in history staged at the New National Theatre Tokyo, Japan’s foremost national centre for performing arts. The production, which was created in 2012 at Deutsche Oper Berlin by the director Christof Loy and then conducted by Donald Runnicles, enjoyed a great success two weeks ago, when … Read more…
On 26 February Janáček’s Jenůfa was given its premiere at Teatr Wielki in Poznań, Poland, exactly ninety years after the last performance of the work there. The production was created by the famous Latvian director Alvis Hermanis two years ago at La Monnaie, Brussels, where it was conducted by Ludovic Morlot. In Poznań Gabrial Chmura … Read more…
A new production of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen received its premiere at NorrlandsOperan in Umeå in northern Sweden – a town, which was elected as the European Capital of Culture of 2014. A family version from 2008 arranged by the composer Alexander Krampe and librettist Ronny Dietrich was chosen by the opera house; it takes slightly … Read more…
Two works for saxophone and piano by Eduard Douša were performed at the second concert of the “Contemporary Czech Composers” concert cycle prepared by the Czech Centre Munich. The event took place on 20 February at the town hall of Allmendingen, a small historical town in Baden-Württemberg. The saxophone player Christian Segmehl and pianist Moritz Eggert … Read more…
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 … 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 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … Read more…