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
One of the nine opera performances Staatstheater Kassel (Hesse) produced this year was Janáček’s Jenůfa. The sold-out premiere which took place on 10 February was preceded a few days earlier by a public talk introducing not only the most famous of Moravian composers and his music but also the background of the Kassel production. The opera was directed … Read more
On 28 January, Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy, Eastern France, presented a new production of Janáček’s Katya Kabanova. It was created by German opera director Philipp Himmelmann who decided to highlight the tragic nature of the story; the spectators are thus even offered handkerchiefs upon entering. The music director is an Irish conductor Mark Shanahan. Popular … Read more
On 15 January, the renowned Quatuor Diotima presented a new piece by Miroslav Srnka. The concert was a part of Biennale de Quatuors à cordes, a festival of string quartets held by the Philharmonie de Paris. Future Family analyses the traditional distribution of musical roles between the players as well as other conventions typical for a string quartet and explores … Read more
After forty years, Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka returned onto the stage of Oper Leipzig, Germany. The new production by Dutch director and scenographer Michiel Dijkema was premiered on 3 December. Focusing on the fairy-tale archetypes of the tragic story, Dijkema crated a mysterious, eerie scenery on the stage, including the lake and moon on a night sky. Most of the … Read more
