Theater Magdeburg in the capital city of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, put on Dvořák’s Rusalka as the first premiere of this year’s season. The production’s author is an experienced British opera director Stephen Lawless, who has collaborated with MET, Berlin State Opera or Royal Opera House Covent Garden, among others. His Rusalka is not a fairy tale, but a harsh “coming … Read more
The ongoing Bard SummerScape festival, held for the 15th time at the Bard College campus some 180 km north of New York, focuses this time primarily on the work of Fréderic Chopin. That is why the choice of the opera to be produced this year fell on a Poland-themed work, the seldom performed Dimitrij by Antonín Dvořák. The author of the … Read more
The 59th year of the Smetana’s Litomyšl music festival (Jun 16 – Jul 6) thought about its youngest spectators, too. It was for them that the festival staged a children opera performance Rusalenka by a well-known singer, pedagogue, and directress of the Prague children’s opera Jiřina Marková-Krystlíková (*1957). Commissioned by the festival, the work is based on Dvořák’s most famous opera. The … Read more
For the second time in its history, the Ekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre staged Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka. The production, premiered on May 19, was created by a Czech-Slovak team led by director Tomáš Pilař, current head of the opera ensemble of the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen, and Ekaterinburg’s music director Oliver Dohnányi. The other … Read more
One of the ensembles performing at the 45th year of the prestigious international Hong Kong Arts festival (Feb 16 – Mar 18) was the ensemble of the National Theatre Brno. HK Cultural Centre’s Concert Hall, which can host nearly 1,600 visitors, saw them perform four times altogether – twice it was Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Case, then his Sinfonietta, Eternal … Read more
Premiered on 2nd February, the historically second production of Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera in New York meets with very mixed reactions. The critics cannot seem to agree in their opinion both on Mary Zimmerman’s direction and the singers’ performance. Who gets mostly enthusiastic reactions is the American mezzosoprano Jamie Barton in the role of Ježibaba; some, … 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
Pivní oratorium (Beer Oratorio) by a composer and conductor Jan Kučera (*1977) received its premiere during the final concert of the 38th year of the Pardubice Music Spring International Festival, which took place on 10 May at the Suk Hall of the House of Music in Pardubice. Commissioned by the festival whose aim is to annually … 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
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
