The ongoing Bard SummerScape festival, held for the 15th time at the Bard College campus some 180 km north of New York, focuses this time primarily on the work of Fréderic Chopin. That is why the choice of the opera to be produced this year fell on a Poland-themed work, the seldom performed Dimitrij by Antonín Dvořák. The author of the … Read more
As a herald of this year’s Ostrava Days festival, a special concert took place on 25th April in the completely sold out Bohemian National Hall of the Czech Center New York. Together with The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, the festival’s director Petr Kotík presented a unique program consisting of works by composers of AACM (Association for the Advancement of … Read more
One of the four operas presented this season at Opera Santa Barbara, California, is Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen. The new production by Crystal Manich, which is dedicated to both adult and children spectators (which is also one of the reasons why it is sung in an English), received two performances – on 3rd and 5th March at … 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
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
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
One of the world’s greatest orchestras, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, selected an all-Czech programme for its concerts on 21, 22 and 23 January. Jiří Bělohlávek, who had been forced to withdraw from the concerts due to medical reasons, was replaced by Seattle Symphony Orchestra Music Director Ludovic Morlot. Smetana’s Moldau opened the show, followed by Fantaisies symphoniques … Read more
