Summary
Ninety years after his death, Leoš Janaček has become a permanent feature of the international operatic repertoire. In Brno and Prague, there has been a strong performing tradition since the 1920s, and German-speaking houses took up Janaček early on, thanks to conductors such as Otto Klemperer and Erich Kleiber. Starting in the 1950s, British opera audiences have been able to experience Janaček performances of the highest quality, thanks to the superlative advocacy of Charles Mackerras, followed by the likes of Richard Armstrong, Mark Elder, Andrew Davis and Simon Rattle. According to statistics on operabase.com, during the seasons 2013–14 to 2017–18 there were 1,212 performances (271 productions) of Janaček's operas in the world's opera houses, putting him between Britten and Gounod in the league table of most performed opera composers. The most popular opera remains Jenůfa (361 performances), closely followed by The Cunning Little Vixen (336).
All the major operas have appeared fairly regularly on British stages, with memorable productions at English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North and Glyndebourne. Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen appear most often. Between 1964 and 2007, Sadler's Wells/ ENO had no fewer than three different productions of The Makropulos Affair (all conducted by Mackerras), which was also successfully staged at Glyndebourne. Fate and The Excursions of Mr Brouček have been performed in recent years by Opera North, and longer ago at English National Opera. Between 1975 and 1982, Welsh National Opera put on five of the operas conducted by Richard Armstrong and directed by David Pountney, with Elisabeth Soderstrom in Káťa and Makropulos. In the last season (2017–18), From the House of the Dead was not only revived by Welsh National Opera (one of Pountney's most inspired productions) but was given for the first time at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, using John Tyrrell's new edition of the score. Further new Janaček productions are planned there in the coming seasons.
In the United States, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in New York have all staged Janaček fairly regularly, as has Opera Australia in Sydney. In Europe, from Berlin to Barcelona, new productions continue to proliferate.
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- Information
- The Janacek Compendium , pp. xiii - xviPublisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019