Frankfurt: The Cunning Little Vixen

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

Vienna: The Diary of One who Disappeared

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

Tokyo: Jenůfa

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

Poznań: Jenůfa

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

Umeå, Sweden: The Cunning Little Vixen

A new production of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen received its premiere at NorrlandsOperan in Umeå in northern Sweden – a town, which was elected as the European Capital of Culture of 2014. A family version from 2008 arranged by the composer Alexander Krampe and librettist Ronny Dietrich was chosen by the opera house; it takes slightly … Read more

Berlin: The Makropulos Affair

On 19 February a new production of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Affair received its premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Its authors are the director David Hermann and the scenographer Christof Hetzer, who had already created the productions of Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (The Little Match Girl) by Helmut Lachenman and Oresteia by Iannis Xenakis … Read more

Innsbruck: The Makropulos Affair

On 13th February the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck premiered a new production of Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair. It was also the very first performance of the work on the stage of this Austrian opera house in history. The members of the creative team, who already worked together on the successful production of Eugen d’Albert’s Tiefland (1903) two years ago, … Read more

Altenburg: Jenůfa

Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa received its premiere on 7th February at the German opera house Landestheater Altenburg. The production was premiered and given three reprises with a great success last year at the partner theater Bühnen der Stadt Gera. These two artistic houses merged together in 1995 and nowadays exist under the joint name Theater und Philharmonie Thüringen; … Read more

Turin: The Cunning Little Vixen

A new production of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen received its premiere on 19 January at the Theatro Regio Turin. Eigth Czech singers in total are starring in this co-production between the Opéra National du Rhin and Opéra de Lille by the well-known Canadian opera director Robert Carsen: Lucie Silkenová (Bystrouška), Michaela Kapustová (Zlatohřbítek), … Read more

Wiesbaden: Katya Kabanova

The premiere of a new production of Janáček’s opera Katya Kabanova took place on January 16 at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. The stage director was Matthew Wild, a South African opera director, who is currently working as Artistic Director of Cape Town Opera, and who set the story into a gloomy post-Soviet periphery. Zsolt Hamar, General Music Director of … Read more