Janáček - Věc Makropulos (Geneva, 2020)

Leoš Janáček - Věc Makropulos

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2020

Tomáš Netopil, Kornél Mundruczó, Rachel Harnisch, Aleš Briscein, Sam Furness, Anna Schaumlöffel, Michael Kraus, Julien Henric, Karoly Szemeredy, Ludovit Ludha, Rodrigo Garcia, Iulia Surdu

GTG Digital - 20 October 2020

The subject of Janáček's Věc Makropulos is definitely not a traditional one; it's a science fiction story derived from a play by Karel Čapek about a woman who has been blessed/cursed with the secret of eternal life. Science fiction and the fantastical are probably more common than you think in opera and long before the 20th century, not just in such overtly classic SF themes as Haydn's Il Mondo Della Luna, but you could even include the magical fantasy elements of such works as The Magic Flute, and Handel's Orlando and Alcina. As with literature however it's the human element that is essential, the SF or fantasy genre presenting a new prism through which to explore the limits of what makes us human. That, aligned with Janáček's modernist approach to opera offers many possibilities for The Makropulos Affair.

The most obvious theme and clearly one of the principal questions that the story explores is the human relationship to time. In a way this aligns the opera with similar themes in The Cunning Little Vixen; the need to accept the span of a lifetime as being wondrous in itself, but there comes a time when life needs to be renewed, the old making way for the new. It's not unreasonable then, particularly considering Emilia Marty's profession as an opera singer who has lived down through the ages, her origins coinciding with the birth of opera, to see that idea applied to opera itself and the need for the artform to reinvent itself in order for it to have continued relevance and meaning.

In that respect Janáček's Věc Makropulos, created in 1926, is very much a twentieth century opera, the composer also striking out for new musical ground. Here he expands on the psychological music drama of Káťa Kabanová and would take it even further in his final work From the House of the Dead, leaving behind the folk influence and conventions of his earlier works - as fresh and original as his approach to them was - and take opera in a new direction, pushing the idea of singing to follow vocal patterns, rather then vocals following musical rhythms. And yet time and timing is also a factor in Věc Makropulos, compressing a complex story with diverse characters and the relationships between them into a relatively short opera, the music measuring out its own idea of time.

If the Hungarian film director Kornél Mundruczó considers the idea of the work being representative of opera through the years, it's in pretty bad shape by the time Emilia Marty makes her appearance in this Grand Théâtre de Genève production recorded between Covid lockdowns in October 2020, with pre-recorded orchestra and chorus for social distancing reasons. She may impress young admirer Krista with her singing voice, dazzle Albert Gregor with her beauty and drive Janek Prus to distraction and suicide, but this Emilia Marty is noticeably rough around the edges, close to being on her last legs. As she removes layers of clothing, sores, stitches, weeping wounds and bandages are visible, all trying to hold her together, By the time we get to the second Act, she's connected up to an intravenous drip.

That idea of stagnating life (or opera) has been explored in other productions (Robert Carsen's Venice production made more of the theatricality aspect), but Mundruczó chooses to approach the idea of Emilia Marty or Elina Makropulos in a more open and modern context. Choosing androgyny rather than the usual beautiful femme fatale or opera diva, EM here can be seen in Janáček's opera and Čapek's story as the prototype of the enigmatic modern day rock star, like Bowie or Tida Swinton's Marianne Lane in Luca Guadagino's film A Bigger Splash. Her own personality is submerged behind identities and reinventions of herself to such an extent that she loses sense of her true identity and becomes a hollow shell of a person.

Whatever way you want to look at Emilia Marty or Elina Makropulos - whether diva or rock star or movie idol - she is an ideal that can never live up to the reality, as Janek's father Prus finds out when he sleeps with her. She is in fact the personification of everybody's dream and ideal, a cipher that everyone uses as an object onto which they project their own dreams, ideals and insecurities. You can also read into that the fate of the objectification of women, EM doing what she needs to do to get by through the ages, to survive at the hands of men and their laws. For Emilia, that's borne out here also in the struggle she has to get around the ideas of inheritance that favour first-born sons, but it soon becomes clear that she has suffered in other ways through the ages.

While Mundruczó doesn't over-emphasise these themes, he allows them to become more evident by removing the second act from its theatrical setting. Act II takes place in Marty's own apartment, one carefully designed to reflect her true personality, inspired by the modernist design of Hungarian-American architect Marcel Breuer. And what consequently comes out in this production is the strength it takes to face up to who you are. By accepting the reality instead of living the dream. Life only has meaning when it is finite. True immortality, or at least a version of it, is offered to Krista, as a singer, but she refuses take the easy option. It - personality, identity - has to be earned.

As likewise does gaining an understanding of what makes EM tick. Janáček's music goes some way to exploring the unusual psychology of Marty, who turns out to be a surprisingly modern phenomenon. Initially fragile and weak, holding no consistent musical theme or melody but just jagged pieces that do not hold comfortably together, her vocal lines strengthen towards the later part of the work, soaring to a conclusion of release or recognition. Mundruczó follows those rhythms, divesting Marty of her clothing and layers of identity until she re-enters time - the furniture and objects of the room floating in space at the moment of revelation - as she becomes truly human.

The singing performances are good, although there's a little uncertainty at first that Rachel Harnisch could carry off the role of Emilia Marty with the necessary charisma, as she is not made up to look like an ageless, timeless beauty. It's a deceptive impression - one that Janáček indeed writes as such - as she powers through to the conclusion in a state of undress. There are no concerns about Aleš Briscein, soaring and lyrical as Albert. All the performances are impressive, which is quite an achievement because Makropulos is a hugely demanding opera on performers, on musicians and on the audience. Without any intervals, the opera is still challenging and it demands total concentration to follow the implications of the court drama and psycho-drama. The rewards however are great, and with Tomáš Netopil conducting, this production holds you rapt and does lead you to consider the circumstances of the characters, and feel the weight of the challenges time and life present to them.

Links: Grand Théâtre de Genève

Janáček - Věc Makropulos (Vienna, 2015 - Webcast)

Leoš Janáček - Věc Makropulos

Wiener Staatsoper, 2015

Jakub Hrůša, Peter Stein, Laura Aikin, Ludovit Ludha, Margarita Gritskova, Markus Marquardt, Wolfgang Bankl, Thomas Ebenstein, Aura Twarowska, Ilseyar Khayrullova, Carlos Osuna, Heinz Zednik, Marcus Pelz

Staatsoper Live at Home - 20 December 2015

You don't see a great deal of 20th century works at the Vienna State Opera, but one composer who remains popular and deserves a place there is Leoš Janáček. In addition to revivals of Otto Schenk's sumptuous The Cunning Little Vixen and David Pountey's Jenůfa this season (both of which can be seen broadcast Live at Home in April 2016), the Wiener Staatsoper's new production of Věc Makropulos is quite a commitment to a major composer who is scarcely as well represented in any other European opera house. While the 'new production' might look impressive and faithful to Janáček's vision, there's little here however that really feels 'new' about it.

Janáček always feels more like a modern composer than a classical composer to me, but in Peter Stein's production of Věc Makropulos, as with Schenk's beautiful but starkly literal and unimaginative production of Cunning Little Vixen, you get the impression that the Vienna State Opera want to wrap Janáček up with mothballs so that he can play safely alongside the Zeffirelli production of La Bohème and Schenk's production of Die Fledermaus there. I can't help feeling that by playing safe Peter Stein entirely misses the point of Věc Makropulos. The opera's main character, Emilia Marty is a 337 year old woman who moves on and refreshes herself with the times in order to retain her allure and mystery. Věc Makropulos essentially must take place in 'the present', but this production doesn't look like it has aged in the hundred years since it was written.

True, just because Věc Makropulos is 'science fiction' doesn't mean it has to look futuristic, but miring the work inside a frozen time-capsule in the year 1922 doesn't do an awful lot for the theme of existing outside the laws of time. You can't really fault the production however for adhering precisely and with utmost fidelity to the set designs and stage directions as they are in the libretto.  It looks exactly how you would imagine an ideal period production of Věc Makropulos would be if it were lifted straight off the page. Dr Kolenaty's office in Prague in 1922 for Act I is the Kafkaesque bureaucratic library of books, volumes and case papers, with steps leading up to the highest shelves. Act II shows a backstage view of stage looking out onto an opera house with a stage throne (as specified in the libretto) sitting plump in the middle of the stage. Emilia's hotel room in Act III is all clean Art Deco curves, straight lines and glossy surfaces.

Arguably, the fact that the settings are traditional and period shouldn't matter as much as what you do within it. Sadly, there was absolutely no imagination or interpretation applied here either. Perhaps I noticed it more because there were unusually no English subtitles provided for this Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home production, meaning I had to rely on a text of the libretto from elsewhere while watching the performance, but it is astonishing how literal the production is in its translation of the directions. Peter Stein not only creates the set design to the exact specifications of the libretto, but he also follows every single movement, gesture and even lighting direction to the letter.

In Act III for example when Emilia Marty returns after her collapse and her off-stage rapid aging, the stage directions specify a greenish lighting. Sure enough, the panels of the wall cast a greenish glow over the stage until the directions call for the lighting to turn red at the dramatic final scene, and the Vienna production dutifully complies. I don't think I've ever seen a production reproduced with such slavish exactitude as this one. The argument of course is why shouldn't the production follow the directions to the letter since that is clearly what the composer wanted? If you've ever wanted an answer to that question it's provided here. It creates a dull, superficial and lifeless production that holds no surprises, but rather just feels like it is going through the motions, moving people around restrictively like puppets.

Janáček's greatest operas are all about 'life', about the passing of time, about being in the moment and accepting one's humanity but with an awareness of being part of something greater. He treats the subject with more sensitivity and humanity in Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen, as well as in his final opera From the House of the Dead, but there can be much more made of the cruel fate of Elina Makropulos than is achieved in this drearily literal production that ignores the subtext and meaning and has no emphasis or ideas of its own to bring to the stage. As lovely as the production looks, it's so dull and unimaginative that it almost but not quite takes away from the real spark of the life that is principally there in Janáček's music.

Jakub Hrůša's conducting sounded to me like it was the musical equivalent of the staging. It was a strictly literal interpretation and well played but with no inspiration or verve. Janáček's music seems to allow for wider interpretation than most, and I've never heard any of his works sound the same twice. Some concentrate on the rhythmic pulse, others spin and leap according to the patterns of the sung language, but there should essentially be a spark of life there. It's hard to entirely extinguish the essence of that in the composer's wonderful arrangements and it does remain intact here, occasionally breaking through to enliven the monotony of the dramatic walk-through.

The singing too was exceptionally good, which is a bonus, and this is a very tricky work to sing. Laura Aikin in particular was simply outstanding as Emilia Marty/Elina Makropulos. I hadn't paid enough attention to the cast list, and couldn't quite recognise her in this role when she appeared, but I was very impressed when I checked during the interval. Whether Aikin is the right age now to play the role of an 'ageless beauty' is debatable, but she certainly gave her character the kind of ambiguity required, somewhere between the cold indifference of having seen and experienced it all, and anxiety and vulnerability over the cruel uncertainty of her fate. Certainly in terms of the singing, Aikin could hardly be faulted, bringing more personality than the stiff stage directions permitted.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video

Janáček - The Makropulos Case (Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014 - Webcast)

Leoš Janáček - The Makropulos Case

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014

Tomáš Hanus, Árpád Schilling, Nadja Michael, Pavel Cernoch, Kevin Conners, Tara Erraught, John Lundgren, Dean Power, Gustav Belácek, Peter Lobert, Heike Grötzinger, Reiner Goldberg, Rachael Wilson

Staatsoper.TV - 1 November 2014

The challenges that come with putting on a production of Janáček's The Makropulos Case are probably no more difficult or easier than dealing with the specific requirements of any of the composer's operas. In all of his works, it's not only vital to settle on a consistent tone and temperament that brings the music and the staging together, but the key singing roles have to be perfect - and singing in the Czech language is no easy matter for a non-native. It's only however when you get to see one of those works come together on every level, that you realise just what its most important ingredients are. The Bayerische Staatsoper's 2014 production of The Makropulos Case is revelatory in that respect.

While all the other elements are still important, it's clear from the Munich production that The Makropulos Case only really works as it should when you have a soprano of great charisma and ability singing the role of Emilia Marty. I'll come to that later, but the other elements are important to consider in how they relate to each other. Musically, everything was perfectly in place here. Tomáš Hanus has prepared a new critical edition of the work, and if it can be judged simply on how well Janáček's music delivers the intent of the libretto, it's a superb interpretation, but it's also clearly responsive to the composer's familiar rhythms and the advancements in the musical language that are evident at this late stage in the composer's career.

The value of Árpád Schilling's direction is less easy to determine. Visually, Márton Ágh's costume and production design doesn't appear to have a great deal to contribute to the drama, the message or the purpose of the work, but conceptually it's on solid ground and it provides a setting that suits the tone that has been carefully established. Act I in Dr. Kolenatý's office is somewhat Kafkaesque, the minimal set consisting of a marbled wall with chairs studded vertically into the narrow side of the revolving set. There are a few steps from this leading down to a snow-covered front-stage. It feels imposing, intimidating, confusing and otherworldly, which isn't a bad impression to give as the details of the Prus versus Gregor case are outlined, and the way that the enigmatic Emilia Marty becomes involved in it.

The stage of the opera-house, or the back-stage of an opera house in Act II, is bright, modern and clinical. Asylum-like almost, with stylised padded walls. Quite what the tone is meant to indicate isn't entirely clear, but if you want to see it that way, it's perhaps a view of Emilia Marty's inner world. Having lived in various guises for the last 300 years, it could be seen as a reflection of her needing to renew and refresh, clinically detach herself from the sentiments and emotions that would inevitably become a heavy burden over such an extended lifetime. There's nothing playful about the science-fiction concept for this opera. It's a serious attempt to examine what gives life meaning, and of course, what gives life meaning above all else is the fact that it will one day come to an end.

Schilling's directing takes this very seriously, as does the musical interpretation of the score by the conductor Tomáš Hanus. Picking up on several other incidents that occur in the work and some of the comments made, Schilling takes this a little further. As a few late additions to the set indicate - including a kind of sacrificial flagellation - what is considered here is not just what would it mean for a person to cope with the eternity of existence, but what it would mean to be a woman, to be a beautiful woman, and to be the object of constant attention, to be pursued, hounded and living permanently as an object of desire to men (and women, if we also consider Krista's fascination with Emilia Marty, which should not be discounted as something incidental). Imagine that and imagine being forever young, beautiful and talented.

Well, that's the challenge that the soprano singing Emilia Marty/Elina Makropulos has to be able to work with. Aside from the language and musical challenges, aside from having to carry the weight of 337 years of being a woman in this position, she also has to be ageless, alluring, enigmatic and charismatic. No small order. Enter Nadja Michael. Michael hasn't been the most consistent singer in the past - when I last saw her Lady Macbeth in Munich she was all over the place really - but there's no questioning her presence and commitment in a performance. Emilia Marty proves to be a perfect fit for Nadja Michael.

I don't know about her Czech - she occasionally sounds a little less than perfectly clear in enunciation - but there's no faulting her singing performance or her ability to enter into her character. Marty is of course an opera diva, and I think Michael can relate to that. She looks simply terrific here, having that necessary presence and allure, wearing short blonde curls here and a teasing dress in Act II that reveals rather a lot. Her performance however is utterly magnetic and otherworldly credible. It would be a bit of a problem if the great opera singer Emilia Marty couldn't sing her own role, but there's no danger of that here, and Michael's performance is enthusiastically and deservedly acclaimed at the curtain call of the live streamed broadcast.

This is the kind of performance that can carry a show, but the other roles are supportive in how exceptionally well they are sung. Pavel Cernoch gives a clearly sung and impassioned Albert Gregor ('Bertie') and John Lundgren's Prus is well-measured and wonderfully sung, his role and relationship to Emilia Marty considered within the context of what it adds to the concept. The other roles are all more then capably sung by the Munich troupe regulars, with Reiner Goldberg in particular giving a touching performance as the former lover of the Carmen-like Andalusian gypsy Eugenia Montez. (There's a whole other question in The Makropulos Case of opera as an eternal artform of passions, and that's not neglected here either). Lyrical, dramatic and passionate, this was everything that Janáček should be, and it will do much to continue to raise his profile as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

Janáček - Věc Makropulos

Leoš Janáček - Věc Makropulos

La Fenice di Venezia, 2013

Gabriele Ferro, Robert Carsen, Ángeles Blancas Gulín, Ladislav Elgr, Andreas Jäggi, Enric Martínez-Castignani, Martin Bárta, Enrico Casari, Guy De Mey, Leonardo Cortellazzi, Judita Nagyová, Leona Pelešková

Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 15 March 2013

Although it would be surpassed by the musical progression in From the House of the Dead, Leoš Janáček at the time considered Věc Makropulos (The Makropolus Case, 1926) as his greatest work to date.  In many ways, Věc Makropulos is the one where many of the themes in Janáček's previous works come together.  The contemplation on the passing of time, the renewal of life, death as a necessary and intrinsic part of existence are perhaps at their most beautiful in The Cunning Little Vixen, while other aspects of living in difficult circumstances, making choices and dealing with adversity in a wider social context can be found in Jenůfa and in Katya Kabanova.  There is something beautifully expressive in the freshness of those earlier works, but the sophisticated arrangements of Věc Makropulos are much more ambitious without losing any of the concision of expression that is so characteristic of the composer.

That concision reduces some of the social context found in the original 1922 play of the same name by the celebrated Czech science-fiction author Karol Capek (the man credited with inventing the term "robot"), but Janáček's focus - as indicated by letters he wrote at the time - was very much on the question of the question of eternal youth as a personal burden on its main character Emilia Marty or Elina Makropulos as she was originally known.  Very little of socialist leanings of Vitek remain in the opera, the lawyer's clerk in the original work believing it would earn man the right to elevate himself and the condition of humanity, while his employer Kolenatý can only see the destruction of social institutions that are based on life being short.  Who for example would want to be married to the same person for 300 years? Janáček's own libretto however reworks the story slightly to consider the question of life only having meaning when it has an end.

Canadian director Robert Carsen's designs for the La Fenice production of Věc Makropulos in Venice then is fairly straightforward and traditional in its 1920s period setting, but he does find something interesting to play with in the theatrical nature of Emilia Marty being an opera singer.  A parallel on the question of identity is drawn immediately in the repetitions of the theme in the Overture (the only overture written for any Janáček opera), where a series of rapid backstage costume changes reflect the fact of Emilia Marty has played many opera roles and at the same time taken on many identities in her 327 years of existence.  Following in such quick succession, you also get the sense of her weariness of living such a life for such a long time.

Opera also plays a major part in the backstage setting of Act II, Carson choosing Puccini's near contemporary Turandot as the opera backdrop, a choice that works well with the unfeeling ice-queen personality that Emilia has developed over the years, showing little concern for the lives or deaths of other lesser beings.  Elsewhere however, Carsen's staging is fairly traditional and the sets by Radu Boruzescu are not as stylised or high-concept as you would more often find with Carsen's productions.  It many not be as visually impressive either, but judging by how strong his presentation of the characters is and the overall success of the production, it is however clearly a thoughtful and appropriate reading of the work.

What is rather more crucial in determining the success of a production of Věc Makropulos - or indeed any Janáček opera - is in how it captures the rhythm of the music, the flow of the singing and the whole essence of life that lies within it.  Conducted by Gabriele Ferro, that was achieved marvellously by the orchestra of La Fenice, the score performed with verve and drive, vividly describing the wonderful details in the use of instruments that make the work so unique and expressive.  No less important to the rhythmic flow are the inflections of the Czech voice and the singing was strong across all the main roles here.  Spanish soprano Ángeles Blancas Gulín  sang Emilia Marty wonderfully with the necessary command, particularly for the way that the diva role was played in this production, her death on the stage, alone under the spotlight, making the work all the more poignant.