The premiere of Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Case on 4 November at London’s Royal Opera House has become one of the defining moments of this opera season. While acclaimed director Katie Mitchell bids farewell to her stage career with this production, Jakub Hrůša is being warmly welcomed by the British press in his new role as Music Director – praised for inspiring leadership and a clear artistic direction at the start of a new era at Covent Garden.
According to The Times (Mark Pullinger), “Mitchell achieves a fine piece of understated teamwork from her cast, while Hrůša’s remarkable grip on the score ignites the orchestra. His regime at the Royal Opera is beginning auspiciously. Crowning it all though is Jakub Hrůša and his orchestra, revelling in Janáček’s fabulous score with its jagged rhythms, repetitive motifs and brassy fanfares. They make The Makropulos Case’s belated Covent Garden premiere well worth the wait.”
The Guardian (Erica Jeal) highlighted both the musical and dramatic excellence:
“Jakub Hrůša’s conducting draws out the music’s colours and the cast are uniformly strong. At the centre of it all is a magnificent, magnetic performance from Ausrine Stundyte as Emilia Marty – imperious yet not invulnerable. Her voice soars above the orchestra even as Hrůša draws out the deep contrasts and bright colours of Janáček’s score, given in an unbroken 90-minute stretch. It’s an exhilarating evening; the opera world is going to miss Mitchell perhaps more than it realises.”
Opera Now wrote: “Director Katie Mitchell signs off in style with this, her final opera production. But it also marks a promising new beginning – just Jakub Hrůša’s second opera as Music Director at Covent Garden, and his first in that position of Janáček, a composer central to his repertoire. Hrůša’s musical direction was excellent, continuously highlighting the radical, angular and uncompromising nature of Janáček’s score. And the orchestra responded in kind, especially the brass, whose bold, often brazen outbursts perfectly set the tone. A performance that bodes well for many more fine Janáček productions under Hrůša’s baton.”
The Stage (George Hall) praised “musical values [that] are sky high, with the company’s Czech music director Jakub Hrůša inspiring the orchestra to their finest playing, allowing every bar to register with total conviction,” while The Telegraph (Nicholas Kenyon) noted that the production “boasts an outstanding lead performance, while conductor Jakub Hrůša keeps the supremely inventive music swirling.”
Bachtrack (Mark Valencia) called it “stunning”:
“If anyone doubted the choice of Jakub Hrůša for the music directorship of The Royal Opera, the twin peaks of Tosca and Makropulos so early in the season will have silenced them. Janáček, of course, is the Czech maestro’s home turf, and this wondrous opera is a summit of their musical realm. The orchestra played like angels (idiomatic angels, if such a thing exists), all at the service of a cast that was as near as dammit flawless. …Oh, the glorious sound of it.”
And MusicOMH.com (Keith McDonnell) summarised it succinctly:
“Mesmerising Janáček at the Royal Opera. Jakub Hrůša’s electrifying conducting and Ausrine Stundyte’s commanding Emilia Marty anchor Katie Mitchell’s provocative new take on Janáček’s strange, spellbinding opera – a first for Covent Garden.”
Janáček’s operas are well-known on British stages – from Káťa Kabanová with Kateřina Kněžíková at Glyndebourne to The Cunning Little Vixen, From the House of the Dead and Jenůfa, the latter conducted by Hrůša at the Royal Opera earlier this year. Yet The Makropulos Case remained one of the few Janáček masterpieces never before performed at Covent Garden. Its long-awaited debut under Hrůša’s baton thus carries a symbolic sense of “repaying a debt” to the composer.
Further performances take place on 7, 10, 12, 19 and 21 November at the Royal Opera House.
The cast features Ausrine Stundyte (Emilia Marty), Sean Panikkar (Albert Gregor), Heather Engebretson, Johan Reuter, Henry Waddington, Peter Hoare, Alan Oke, and Daniel Matoušek (Janek).
More information:
www.roh.org.uk/the-makropulos-case
