In 2008 we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the death of Leoš Janacek, one of the most original personalities of European music and indisputably the Czech opera composer with the greatest world renown. Janacek’s penultimate opera, The Makropulos Case (1926), is inspired by Karel ?apek’s play of the same name. The opera takes over the basic framework, characters and situations from Capek’s famous “philosophical comedy” about the desire for immortality and the fear of it. Janá?ek’s independent input, so typical of him, is the foregrounding of erotic relationships and the story’s erotic atmosphere in general, as well as an immense empathising with the pivotal role of a woman, the famous singer Emilie Marty, who, despite all the cynicism accumulated during her immortal life, actually still longs for love, sense and fulfilment, and envies those mortals who can believe – perhaps naively – in these “ordinary things”. The Anglo-American production team is bolstered by the Czech conductor Tomas Hanus, who already conducted The Makropulos Case at Paris’s Opéra Bastille.
Orchestra and Choir of the National Theatre Opera.