Royal Ballet & Opera 2025–26 Review: The Makropulos Case

(Photo: Camilla Greenwell) Pinching twitching nerves, Czech master Janáček’s angst-ridden “The Makropulos Case” warns of extra life. Lead role Emilia Marty’s present incarnation joins a palimpsest: Eugenia Montez, Ellian MacGregor, Ekaterina Myshkin, Else Müller and the titular Elina Makropulos. A magical elixir has sustained her for three centuries. Strife drives the aria-void work. Through strings unhinged, alarming accidentals and duplicitous {…}

Mar 6, 2025

Scottish Opera 2024-25 Review: The Makropulos Affair

(Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic) It is rare these days for a director and their team to allow an opera to emerge solely from its score and text without the need to impose their own reading, offer a new twist, introduce wonderful stage effects, or succumb to the temptation of placing it in a new setting. In fact, to do otherwise is {…}

Jan 18, 2025

Janáček Brno Festival 2024 Review: The Cunning Little Vixen

(Photo: Marek Olbrzymek) During a walk in the forests outside Brno, Rudolf Těsnohlidek and his friends came across an abandoned baby that was left to freeze under a tree. The unmarried mother was eventually found and claimed she was hoping that the child would be discovered and given a better life. Unfortunately, such incidents were not uncommon in the early {…}

Jan 18, 2025

Royal Ballet & Opera 2024–25 Review: Jenůfa

(Photo credit: © Camilla Greenwell/Royal Ballet & Opera) Pinching pitches at an apex, Janáček’s “Jenůfa” scales extremes. The opera tells of sextoness Kostelnička Buryjovka, who takes a lethal misstep to protect her stepdaughter. Persuaded Laca will agree to wed Jenůfa if she’s childless, Kostelnička drowns newborn baby Števa. Rue accrues until Kostelnička confesses. Any other art form would attribute her {…}

Oct 23, 2024

Q & A: Soprano Adriana Kučerová on Her Role as the Vixen and the Political Problems Facing Opera in Slovakia

(Photo: Lukáš Kimlička) Having recently reviewed a marvelous production of “The Cunning Little Vixen” by the Slovak National Theatre Opera in Bratislava, OperaWire decided to take the opportunity to interview the vixen, played by soprano Adriana Kučerová. One of the stars of the Slovak National Theatre Opera, Kučerová has an established international reputation and has performed widely in leading opera {…}

Oct 11, 2024

The Slovak National Theater Opera 2024 Review: The Cunning Little Vixen

(Photo: Marek Olbrzymek) It is too often the case that Janáček’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” is presented as an opera for children, no doubt because it has lots of furry animals that talk and sometimes act like humans, although it is also probably a reaction to the fact that Janáček’s inspiration for the opera came from a cartoon strip in {…}

Nov 16, 2023

Teatro dell’Opera di Roma to Broadcast ‘From the House of the Dead’

The Teatro dell’Opera id Roma is set to present Janáček’s “From the House of the Dead” on Rai5. The broadcast will be on Nov. 16 and will feature a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski. The showcase is a co-production with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden di Londra, La Monnaie, and l’Opéra National de Lyon. The cast includes Mark S. Doss {…}

Dec 15, 2022

In Less Than Five Minutes, Get To Know – ‘The Three Olgas’

One of the delights from this year’s Janáček Festival was the Brno Conservatory’s production of a work entitled “The Weeping Fountain.” It was a short opera, lasting approximately one hour, which explored the relationship between the composer and his daughter Olga Janáčeková, focusing on the letters she sent to him whilst spending time away from home in St Petersburg. The {…}

Dec 6, 2022

Janacek Brno Festival 2022 Review: Katya Kabanova

(Photo: Festival Janacek Brno) Human beings need love and friendship to flourish and to pursue normal, balanced lives. Remove this support and replace it with abuse, neglect and contempt, and a person will become unable to function successfully. They will become maladjusted, unable to relate to others with ease and confidence, and suffer increasing periods of loneliness and isolation. Desperate {…}

Nov 30, 2022

Janacek Brno Festival 2022 Review: From The House Of The Dead & The Glagolitic Mass

(Photo: Marek Olbrzymek) Would any opera house be bold enough to present a work about the horrors of life in a gulag in which the guilty and innocent are thrown together to be abused, debased and left to die? Undoubtedly, the answer is yes! What if it were to be presented in a Christian context, in which Christ walks among {…}

Nov 27, 2022

Janacek Brno Festival 2022 Review: The Diary Of One Who Disappeared

(Photo: Festival Janacek Brno) Janacek’s song cycle “The Diary of One Who Disappeared” is a regular inclusion at the Janacek Brno Festival. Yet such have been the variety of performances, they can often appear as very different works. At the 2020 festival, the cycle was presented as a staged work using Janáček’s own staging instructions, with Pavol Breslik in the {…}

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