On 1 April, Oper Frankfurt introduced their new production of Leoš Janáček’s last opera From the House of the Dead. It was created by Italian conductor Tito Ceccherini and German-French director David Hermann, who had for the last time worked with Janáček’s music only two years ago, directing The Makropulos Affair in the renowned Deutsche Oper Berlin. … Read more
„How to talk about the terrors and inhumanity of the Nazi period to kids? And how to speak about those whose names have never made it to historical literature?” These are the questions Landestheater Linz was trying to answer in their new production of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár premiered on 31 March. Conductor Martin Braun and … Read more
After 45 years, Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen returned to the stage of Theater Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The premiere on 24 March has already received a very positive critical response. The praise has concerned mainly the direction by Mascha Pörzgen, who perfectly balanced both levels of the story – a beast fable and an allegorical drama – and the performance of … Read more
Conductor Will Humburg concluded his three-year-long Janáček cycle at Staatstheater Darmstadt with a new production of The Makropulos Affair. The theatre’s general music director is already an expert when it comes to the Moravian composer; apart from Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen in Darmstadt, he had also conducted Katya Kabanova a couple of years ago in Bonn. The directress Eva-Maria Höckmayer tried to depict especially the … Read more
On 9 March at the Morat-Institut in Freiburg, ensemble recherche, top-class German contemporary music ensemble, gave world premiere to String trio no. 2 by Czech composer Petr Bakla. In the 2017 piece, the author asks the players to produce “an objective, pure sound”, devoid of any interpretational stereotypes, one he has since long found to be the “most … Read more
For the first time in its history, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, presented From the House of the Dead, the last opera by composer Leoš Janáček. Created in co-production with Brussels’ La Monnaie theatre and Opéra National de Lyon, the performance is remarkable for the involvement of several Czech and Slovak singers; apart … Read more
On 3 March, Theater Koblenz (Rhineland-Palatinate) presented a new production of Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen. As the director Alexander von Pfeil put it, he had decided to focus not only on the depiction of the natural world, but also on revealing the Kafkaesque traces of the opera. The conductor is the theatre’s music director and chief conductor … Read more
On 3 March, Oper Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia presented a new production of Bohuslav Martinů’s Julietta. It was the historically first performance of the composer’s operatic masterpiece in Western Germany. The production was created by an Israelian directress Inga Levant, who had already worked on The Tales of Hoffmann in Wuppertal this year. In Julietta, she once again focused on … Read more
60 years after its Russian premiere, the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow put on a new production of Jenůfa, Leoš Janáček’s most famous operatic work. Sung in Russian, the piece was premiered on 28 February. The creative team was led by the theatre’s long-standing collaborators, director Alexander Titel and conductor Evgeny Brazhnik. Alternating in the leading roles are Elena Bezgodkova and Elena Guseva (Jenůfa), … Read more
One of the fifteen premieres of Oper Köln’s 2017/18 season is The Emperor of Atlantis. A one-act opera, composed by Viktor Ullmann in 1943 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, received its premiere on 24 February on the modern, glass-fronted stage at Offenbachplatz. The production was created by a house team consisting of directress Eike Ecker and conductor Rainer Mühlbach. … Read more
