The 71st year of the Bregenzer Festspiele festival (Vorarlberg, Austria) presented a new production of Make No Noise, chamber opera by a renowned Czech composer Miroslav Srnka. Directed by Johannes Erath, it was performed on 17 and 19 August in the modern Werkstattbühne hall. Commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera, Make No Noise was written in 2011 … Read more
Held regularly from as early as 1969, the Carinthischer Sommer festival in Villach, the metropolis of the federal state of Carinthia, is one of the best known and most popular festivals in Austria. This year among those representing the contemporary music scene was the composer Ondřej Adámek (*1979), one of the festival’s Artists in Residence for 2016. … Read more
Savonlinna Opera Festival, held between July 8 and August 6 in Savonlinna in the south-east of Finland, presented From the House of the Dead (1928), the very last opera by Leoš Janáček. The premiere took place on July 23 in a curious location of the medieval Olavinlinna castle. The production is a famous one, created by David … Read more
A new production of Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček is one of the four performances played at Longborough Festival Opera this year. Held between June 9 and August 4, this festival offers what is referred to as “country house opera” experience, which means that the works are performed at remote country houses. In addition to the … Read more
The Prague-based string quartet fama Q gave a concert in a small Castillian town Quintanar de la Orden at the 23rd Festival de Música La Mancha. Among the works performed were the world premieres of String Quartet No. 2 by Petr Bakla and String Quartet by Jakub Rataj. The other pieces on the programme were written by … Read more
Five performances of Bohuslav Martinů’s Mirandolina were held at the renowned Teatro La Fenice (Venice) in the first half of July. Directed by Gianmaria Aliverta, this opera from 1953-54 based on a comedy La Locandiera (The Mistress of the Inn) by Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) was this time set into a present-day wellness centre of a modern hotel. The conductor is … Read more
On June 11 the Theater Mönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) saw a premiere of Janáček’s opera Katja Kabanowa which was last played here 26 years ago. The story of one of the composers’s strongest female characters was put on stage by a team composed almost exclusively of women – from the scenographer and wardrobe supervisor, past the dramaturge to the choirmistress, … Read more
For the first time in its history, Teatro Real in Madrid staged a new production of Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis (1943). Dramaturgically the premiere was a part of the theatre’s special programme series of works composed mostly by Jewish authors in the 1930s and 1940s. Apart from the main attraction, Arnold Schönberg’s Moses and Aaron, the series also included … Read more
On May 28 one of Bohuslav Martinů’s operatic masterpieces, Juliette (1937-38), was performed, for the first time in the theatre’s history, at the Staatsoper Berlin. The all-star cast includes the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená in the title role of Juliette and Rolando Villazón as Michel; the conductor is the Staatsoper’s musical director Daniel Barenboim. Much of the attention … Read more
Antonín Dvořák’s rarely played oratorio Saint Ludmila concluded the Dvořák Festival held by the Manchester Hallé Orchestra. In the course of two weeks between May 5 and 21 the orchestra led by Sir Mark Elder commemorated the music by this renowned Czech composer by launching seven concerts of some of his most famous works. Among the … Read more
