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
“… Impressions and Touches in the Soul…”, this year’s first concert by the Konvergence composers’ association, took place on 5 March in the Church of St Lawrence in Lesser town, Prague. It presented, among others, the premiere of Doteky milosrdenství (The Touches of Mercy), a new piece by a well-known Brno-based composer Pavel Zemek-Novák. The programme also included La Mandragore (Tristan Murail), Ambre … 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
On 3 March, Oper Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia presented a new production of Bohuslav Martinů’s Julietta. It was the historically first performance of the composer’s operatic masterpiece in Western Germany. The production was created by an Israelian directress Inga Levant, who had already worked on The Tales of Hoffmann in Wuppertal this year. In Julietta, she once again focused on … 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 fifteen premieres of Oper Köln’s 2017/18 season is The Emperor of Atlantis. A one-act opera, composed by Viktor Ullmann in 1943 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, received its premiere on 24 February on the modern, glass-fronted stage at Offenbachplatz. The production was created by a house team consisting of directress Eike Ecker and conductor Rainer Mühlbach. … Read more
The South Czech Philharmonic presented Vrstvení (Layering), a new piece by composer and top-class cymbalist Daniel Skála (*1981). It was performed on 21 and 22 February in the church of Saint Anna, České Budějovice, under the direction of Marek Prášil. “The title of the piece refers to the main principle of composition I used here,” Skála said. “Instead of melodies and … Read more
As a part of their 49th season, the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice introduced Little Words, a new song cycle by composer and the orchestra’s former music director Marko Ivanović (*1976). The piece attracted the attention of the Prague Spring festival, too; that is why the audience in the Suk Hall of Pardubice’s Dům hudby on 19 February had a chance … 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 4 January, PKF – Prague Philharmonia gave world premiere to an orchestral version of YIN – Nostalgia and Hope by composer Ondřej Štochl (*1975). Its chamber version for vibraphone and 12 instruments had been premiered 2 years ago in Brno; just like then, the solo part was now played again by the excellent Martin Opršál. The orchestral transcription maintained … Read more
