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
On April 30 the Theater für Niedersachsen in Hildeshaim, Lower Saxony, gave premiere to a new production of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. It was created by Guillermo Amaya, a Spanish director who currently holds the post of the theatre’s chief stage director, and conducted by its music director Werner Seitzer. The leading roles are sung by the Spanish … Read more
On 30 April the Theatre Trier, Germany, launched for the first time in its history one of Leoš Janáček’s less frequently played operas The Excursions of Mr. Brouček (1920). The production was created by Jasmina Hadziahmetovic, a Germany-based director of Bosnian origin who has collaborated as an assistant director with several renowned institutions such as Komische Oper … Read more
On 29 and 30 April two performances of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen at Les Quinconces theatre in Le mons, France, closed the production’s tour organized by the Paris-based opera house Arcal. The company’s aim being to bring high-quality opera performances to regions where these are otherwise not particularly easy to find, the ensemble’s mission consists of travelling through the … Read more
Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka was performed in South Korea for the first time in history on 28 April in a new production by Korean National Opera. Its cast includes exclusively Korean singers, which is in a country suffering from a lack of qualified opera artists a very unusual phenomenon. Two leading Korean sopranos alternate in the tite role of Rusalka – … Read more
This year’s winner of the Opernwelt magazine’s ‘Opera House of the Year’ award, Oper Frankfurt, launched a new production of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen as its 10th premiere of the 2015/2016 season. Owing to the last century’s environmental disasters no longer being able to perceive the forrest as the ‘wonderfully beautiful’ place as sung by the Forester in … Read more
A new production of Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka received its premiere on Saturday 23 April at Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken, Germany. It was produced by David Hermann, a successful German-French director already experienced with Czech music; his recent production of The Makropulos Affair is currently on at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Saarländisches Staatstheater’s music director Christopher Ward (UK) is … 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
