Comedy and Thriller
Interview |
If we compare the late Janáček opera Věc Makropulos with an earlier opera such as Jenůfa, what makes Makropulos stand out?
That it is more extreme in every respect - also in terms of difficulty.
Věc Makropulos is by far Janáček's most difficult opera!
And not just by Janáček, but in the history of opera in general.
What are these extreme difficulties?
First of all, everything doesn't happen in "opera time", but in real time.
So the whole work runs through at a fast pace, very suddenly, very densely.
Sometimes you say in 20 seconds what in other operas takes an hour to formulate.
In addition, there are great technical challenges; it is simply very difficult music to play.
There are repeated virtuoso solo passages in the orchestra, for example, some of which are reminiscent of a complicated etude.
There are also rhythmic peculiarities such as numerous time changes, which are not easy, especially for the singers.
And now the punch line: if you can manage all this, then the whole thing seems very light and organic.
You don't even realize how big the challenges are.
Janáček followed a very personal path of a musical language that also drew its material from the melody of speech.
Is this still the case with Věc Makropulos?
Yes, there are indeed passages in this opera whose melodies are formed from the germ cells of language.
Although perhaps less consciously than in other of his works - so it happened almost automatically.
In any case, I would like to pay particular attention to the orchestra, because for long stretches, this is where the main musical design lies - the vocal parts often run above it in a conversational tone.
What fascinates me again and again is how far the musical expression and the spoken text can diverge.
Sometimes the hardest and most brutal text is accompanied by the most beautiful and rapturous music.
If you only listened to the sound, you would think it was a love scene.
The music knows more about the characters than is said.
How should you approach this opera if you don't know the work?
The plot in her main line is simple: thanks to a miracle elixir, Emilia Marty has a very, very long life: 337 years.
And now she is thinking of extending it by another 300 years.
However, after decades of studying this work, I still regularly discover new things.
Věc Makropulos cannot be exhausted!
Strictly speaking, you get five pieces in one evening: a tragedy, a comedy, a thriller, a love story and a fairy tale.
Listening to the opera just once is simply not enough!