Hats in the Sky (2004), Oh, my Admired C minor (2002) and Rubato (1995). Three chamber pieces by a prominent Czech composer Martin Smolka were performed at the Mendelssohn Hall of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus by the Ensemble Avantgarde, a residential ensemble for contemporary music, together with the music of the ensemble’s artistic director Steffen Schleiermacher. Different as the composers’ musical … Read more
The German version of Janáček’s song cycle The Diary of One who Disappeared (1917-1919) was given its premiere on 8 April in Vienna. Composed by a nearly 65-year-old Janáček as a love declaration for an unattainable woman, this passionate story consisting of 21 short songs to the poetry of Ozef Kalda was performed in the stylish Razumovsky Salon … Read more
A new production of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár received its premiere on 9 April at the Teatro Royal in Madrid. Its being part of this opera season’s programme has to do with the overall dramaturgy which, as the theatre’s artistic director Joan Matabosch puts it, is focused on works revolving around the topic of the „Central European anti-Semitism … Read more
A new production of the opera Brundibár by Hans Krása was presented during this year’s mid-season festival held by Opéra de Lyon. Composed in 1938 yet premiered and more than fifty times reprised not until five years afterwards at the Theresienstadt concentration camp by the deported Jewish children, this over 30-minute-long children’s opera is, according to the … Read more
Michal Rataj’s Missa Abstracta accompanied the opening of Patrik Hábl’s art installation at the historical complex of the Speinshart monastery in Bavaria on 26 March. Inspired by the so-called Screen Tearing – a visual artifact created by the disturbance of the display device -, the installation was based on the covering of the nave’s altar area by the monumental … Read more
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 Hall … 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 and multiple … 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 arrival of … 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 it reached … 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 took … Read more
