On 25th February, Seattle Opera in Washington, USA, premiered a new production of Leoš Janáček’s Katya Kabanova. The Australian director Patrick Nolan, debutant at this opera house, did not set the story into the tsarist Russia, but into a small American town in the 50s. The heroine is thus presented as a modern woman rebelling against the patriarchal environment … Read more
On 25th February, Seattle Opera in Washington, USA, premiered a new production of Leoš Janáček’s Katya Kabanova. The Australian director Patrick Nolan, debutant at this opera house, did not set the story into the tsarist Russia, but into a small American town in the 50s. The heroine is thus presented as a modern woman rebelling against the patriarchal environment … Read more
After Vienna and London, the acclaimed all-evening opera Biedermann and the Arsonists (2005-2007) by a Czech-Austrian composer Šimon Voseček received its German premiere, too. It was produced in Stadttheater Bremerhaven in northern Germany by director Christian van Götz and conductor Thomas Kalb. Based on Max Frisch’s absurd drama of the same name (1958), the opera tells how … Read more
On 4th February, Landestheater Coburg, Bavaria, presented a new, radical production of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen. The Hungarian director duo Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka, who are also responsible for the scenography and costumes, completely abandoned the animal realm and set the story into the world of child prostitution in Eastern Europe. Cages holding underage girls prisoner … Read more
Premiered on 2nd February, the historically second production of Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera in New York meets with very mixed reactions. The critics cannot seem to agree in their opinion both on Mary Zimmerman’s direction and the singers’ performance. Who gets mostly enthusiastic reactions is the American mezzosoprano Jamie Barton in the role of Ježibaba; some, … Read more
Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken, the capital of the state of Saarland, Germany, opened its 2017 opera season with a premiere of Janáček’s Katja Kabanowa. Written in 1921 and based on A. N. Ostrovsky’s play The Storm, the opera got performed here for the first time in history. The premiere took place on January 14. The director Ben Baur set … Read more
Thirty years since the last performance, Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis returned onto the stage of the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. The new production of this one-act opera, composed in 1943 in the Theresienstadt ghetto, was premiered on 11 January on the Kammeroper scene. The director is Rainer Vierlinger, the theatre’s long-standing collaborator for whom … Read more
On 17th December, Theater Erfurt (Thuringia, Germany) presented a new production of Bedřich Smetana’s Bartered Bride. It was conducted by the theatre’s second kapellmeister, Greek conductor Zoi Tsokanou. Rather than to experiment, director Markus Weckesser chose to set the story, very traditionally, into a Bohemian village, the atmosphere of which is enhanced by the realist scenography and costumes. The central pair … Read more
Staatsoper Hannover chose to present Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride as one of their productions for the 2016/2017 season. The premiere took place on 29th October and there are ten more performances to follow. The production was directed by Martin G. Berger, young German director celebrated especially for his radical production of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus (also … Read more
The 71st year of the Bregenzer Festspiele festival (Vorarlberg, Austria) presented a new production of Make No Noise, chamber opera by a renowned Czech composer Miroslav Srnka. Directed by Johannes Erath, it was performed on 17 and 19 August in the modern Werkstattbühne hall. Commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera, Make No Noise was written in 2011 … Read more
