4 – 7 May 2018, Royal Pump Rooms, The Parade, Leamington Spa, UK Leamington Music Festival Weekend Seven concerts of music by Antonín Rejcha, Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, Josef Suk, Bohuslav Martinů, Ervín Schulhoff, Klement Slavický and Luboš Fišer Ensemble 360, Pražák String Quartet, Guarneri Trio, Ivan Klánský, Jana Vonášková-Nováková, Martin Kasík, Nicholas Wearne
On 1 April, Oper Frankfurt introduced their new production of Leoš Janáček’s last opera From the House of the Dead. It was created by Italian conductor Tito Ceccherini and German-French director David Hermann, who had for the last time worked with Janáček’s music only two years ago, directing The Makropulos Affair in the renowned Deutsche Oper Berlin. … Read more
After 45 years, Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen returned to the stage of Theater Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The premiere on 24 March has already received a very positive critical response. The praise has concerned mainly the direction by Mascha Pörzgen, who perfectly balanced both levels of the story – a beast fable and an allegorical drama – and the performance of … Read more
Conductor Will Humburg concluded his three-year-long Janáček cycle at Staatstheater Darmstadt with a new production of The Makropulos Affair. The theatre’s general music director is already an expert when it comes to the Moravian composer; apart from Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen in Darmstadt, he had also conducted Katya Kabanova a couple of years ago in Bonn. The directress Eva-Maria Höckmayer tried to depict especially the … 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
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 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
Miroslav Srnka, the most successful Czech composer today, was the main star of DIALOGE 2017, contemporary music festival held by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. Forming the dramaturgical basis of the festival, his music was being performed several times over the 4 days – as the festival’s name suggests – in dialogues with other contemporary, classical, electronic or film … Read more
