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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
