Tag Archives: Leoš Janáček

Composer : Leoš Janáček after Ostrovsky’s The Storm Director: Tim Albery Conductor : Sian Edwards Reviewer: Dave Cunningham At 105 minutes Katya Kabanova is an awkward length for an opera: too short to require an interval but too long to be part of a double bill. However, absorbing the opera in a single sitting exposes the audience to the full raw emotion ...

Music/Libretto: Leoš Janáček Director: Tim Albery Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Janáček’s Katya Kabanova returns to Opera North’s repertoire for the winter season after this production premiered in 2007. This three-act opera is based on V. Červinka’s translation of Ostrovsky’s The Storm which exposes the societal attitudes among the Russian’s merchant class. Set by the Volga River, the opera is about Katya ...

Music & Libretto: Leoš Janáček (libretto from Dostoyevsky’s novel, English translation by David Pountney) Director: David Pountney Designer: Maria Bjornson Lighting: Chris Ellis Conductor: Tomáš Hanus Reviewer: Leah Tozer The curtain rises on an intricate, ramshackle construction of bricks, boards, and broken men cascading across a remarkable, multi-levelled recreation of a communal prison cell. We see in, through a literal ...

Composer : Leoš Janáček Libretto: Leoš Janáček after the play by Gabriela Preissova Director: Tom Cairns Conductor: Aleksandar Marković Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Opera North’s visit to The Lowry offers variety if nothing else with a comic opera, a musical and, tonight, a tragedy. Jenůfa is a dark and oppressive tale and no mistake. Composer Leoš Janáček melds a bleak subject ...

Music: Leoš Janáček Director: Tom Cairns Choreographer: Aletta Collins Conductor: Aleksander Markovićl Reviewer: Tom Tollett In these cash-strapped times, Opera North are discovering a plethora of wonders at the back of the drawer. Recently, the welcome re-vamp of Giles Havergal's production of The Barber of Seville from 1986 and now, Tom Cairns' equally memorable 1995 Jenůfa. It is said that ...

Writer: Leos Janacek Librettist: Rudolf Tesnohlidek Director &Translator: David Pountney Reviewer: Marina Spark [rating:3] The Welsh National Opera's The Cunning Little Vixen begins in a summer forest scene and introduces the audience to the inexperienced young vixen who eventually becomes the cunning little Vixen. After spending some time as a captive of the Forester, she escapes and progresses to consistently ...

Music &Libbretto: Leoš Janáček Director: David Pountney Reviewer: Barbara Michaels [Rating:4.5] One of the trio of operas being performed by Welsh National Opera under the thematic banner of Free Spirits, director David Pountney’s production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen has lost none of its magic in the thirty three years since its inception. Pountney’s treatment of Janáček’s tragicomic masterpiece ...

Music &Lyrics: Leos Janacek Director: Tom Cairns Conductor: Richard Farnes Reviewer: Iain Sykes [Rating:4.5] Legal proceedings, intrigue, virtual immortality, and a talented diva all seem unlikely subject for opera but in Leos Janacek’s The Makropulos Case, based on Karel Capek’s 1922 play of the same name, they combine perfectly into an opera which starts in a dull legal office and ...