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Music
Leos Janacek
Director
Christopher
Alden
Conducter
Sir Charles
Mackerras
Emilia
Marty
Cheryl Barker
Dr Kolenaty
Neal Davies
Albert
Gregor
Robert Brubaker
Vitek
John Graham-Hall
Kristina
Elena Xanthoudakis
Baron
Prus
John Wegner
Janek
Thomas Walker
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
18
May - 9 June 2006 |
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Janacek
doyen Sir Charles Mackerass
returns to the ENO for a dazzling
new production of the composer's
Makropulos Case - a work he
conducted for its UK debut
at Saddlers Wells in 1964.
His cycle of Janacek operas
recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic
were award-winning and it
is not hard to see why: under
Mackerras' baton the orchestra
rose to the challenge of interpreting
this demanding score with
assurance, especially in the
overture and peroration. It
was a privilege to witness
the octogenerian master in
his element.
A gifted musical dramatist,
Janacek wrote his own libretto
based on Karel Capek's eponymous
play (a successful comedy)
but in his hands it becomes
something far darker and troubling.
The alchemist's daughter,
Emilia Marty, has lived over
300 years since she drank
the elixir of life in 1565.
The original femme fatale
- very much in the mould of
Berg's Lulu - Emilia is world-weary
and sated despite her reign
as the greatest singer ever
known, (necessarily in different
guises) fame and riches. Mesmeric
to the male sex whom she depises,
she is consumed with loneliness
and bitterness - immune to
pleasure or pain. Returning
to Prague to intervene mysteriously
in the century-old land dispute
of Prus v. Gregor it transpires
Emilia has more than a passing
interest in the litigation.
In Christopher Alden's fluent
first production for the ENO,
the staging is heavy with
eroticism. Cheryl Barker's
pheremone-charged Emilia is
a searing revelation, full
of voluptuous menace, a lava-like
voice pulsating with pain.
By comparism, Janacek's men
are mere cyphers. In the midst
of a chorus of sinister, suited
apparatchiks (half zombie)
the politburo-style leads
have difficulty distinguishing
themselves but do their very
best. John Wegner as the lusty
beef-cake Prus and Robert
Brubaker's ingratiating, hand-wringing
Gregor (reprising the acclaimed
role he sang at the Metropolitan
Opera, New York) were outstanding
and illuminated this tragic
orbit of "vanitas, ashes and
dust".
Charles Edwards' awesome deco
set-design echoed the Chrysler
building by way of Fritz Lang.
With minimal changes, his
monumental, monochrome steel
and marble auditorium hosted
all the action. An exception
to this was the huge partner's
desk, centre-stage, which
later performs the service
of both bed and bier. Adam
Silverman's atmospheric lighting
also deserves a mention, stark
and menacing by turn.
Barker's diva of an Emilia
and the terrible fascination
she exerts on men - "It's
perversity loving you" laments
her descendant Gregor before
he tries to take her life
- is the embodiment of the
adage that each man kills
the thing it loves. We feel
genuine horror as the opera's
denoument approaches: an unmitigated
emotional climax which exhausts
cast and audience. Janacek
altered the play's ending
by having Emilia renounce
life and her accolyte Kristina
burn the formula - the result
is a transendant moment of
musical power and drama which
is a credit to all concerned.
Caroline
Kellett Fraysse |
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