A Rather Special Interpretation in Music & Vision 29 ottobre

A Rather Special Interpretation
GIUSEPPE PENNISI was at the opening night
of the new production in Florence
of Janácek's 'The Makropoulos Case'

As reported this summer on the basis of a new Salzburg-Warsaw production (see M&V, 22 August 2011, Faith and the Devil), Vec Makropoulos is one of Janácek's last works. Premiered in 1926 in Brno, the music drama -- a more appropriate term than 'opera' -- is based on a then successful play by Karel Capec which appears like a thriller: the gradual uncovering of the mystery surrounding the opera singer Emilia Marty, who is in possession of very detailed information about facts and documents long past (and of critical importance in a major trial which has lasted over one hundred years). She exerts a strange fascination on everyone coming into contact with her. In a compact play, we discover that due to a strange set of events and a potion -- the Vec Makropoulos -- she has been living for 337 years. Her original name was Elina Makropoulos: she has changed it several times (but always keeping E M initials). She lost the Vec Makropoulos (ie the recipe for the potion) in about 1820, and unless she finds it again, she will have to die. Well, she gets back into possession of the Vec Makropoulos but realizes that she is tired and no longer has the desire to live for another three hundred years. During the previous three centuries, she has lost all her friends and affections; now she wants to die. She gives the Vec Makropoulos to a younger up-and-coming singer, Krista, who decides to burn it.

Miro Dvorksy as Albert Gregor and Angela Denoke as Emilia Marty in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
The opera is, perhaps, Janácek's most successful attempt to merge words with tonalities so that the audience could grasp each and every nuance of a real trial thriller lasting ninety minutes (instead of the nearly four hours of Capec's play where the plot is intertwined with long philosophical and religious discussions); however this can hardly be fully appreciated unless the audience understands Moravian (the language of the libretto) and often the music drama is performed in translation.

Miro Dvorksy as Albert Gregor and Angela Denoke as Emilia Marty in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
Vec Makropoulos was revived in the US in a much celebrated New York City Opera production that toured extensively. The music drama reached Italy as late as in 1960 in a concert performance by the national broadcasting company (RAI). The first fully staged production was heard and seen in Florence in 1966 as part of a tour by the Brno Opera Company; although the performances were quite successful, several years went by before the music drama was back in Italian theatres. The revival was in 1982 in a rather peculiar tour in Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Parma and Modena; the conductor (Joseph Kuchinza) and the protagonist (Nadezna Kniplova) were Moravian but most of the others in the cast were Italian and each one sang in her or his own language. A rather confusing arrangement. A different production in rhythmic translation in Italian was staged in Florence in 1983 with (as protagonist) the American soprano Josephine Barstow whose diction left a lot to be desired -- once more a less than fully satisfactory way to handle such a complex work. It was followed by a production in Italian which I saw in Turin in 1993 and in Naples in 1999; Raina Kabaivanska was the protagonist. The same production was presented in Bologna in 1994; stage sets and costumes of this Turin-Bologna-Naples production were used for a 2009 production in Moravian at La Scala. In my opinion, the Italian 'versions' did not help to understand the tight dialogue on stage and missed out the careful work to mould words and tonalities also because, until E M's final arioso, the music drama is constructed on musical fragments joined in a large variety of combinations and intertwined by full orchestra 'intermezzo'; a real challenge for both the orchestra and the singers. The protagonist requires a very strong personality and a great vocal capability. The Florence Opera House made the right decision in choosing the original language with supertitles in both Italian and English.

Angela Denoke as Emilia Marty and Andrzej Dobber as Jeroslav Prus in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
The Florence production was unveiled on 25 October 2011, and this report is based on that opening night. The stage direction is very different from that seen last August in Salzburg and some time ago in Aix en Provence (not to mention the Turin-Bologna-Naples-La Scala production). It is entrusted to a well known American movie author, William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection, To Live or Die in L A), famous for 'action films', even if he has recently turned also to opera directing. Along with William Friedkin, there is his most favoured 'special effects' expert, Michael Currer (for the sets); the costumes are signed by Andrea Schmidt-Futtere. No doubt there is a lot of action and excellent acting on stage, but Friedkin and Co seem to forget that under the appearances of a thriller, Vec Makropoulos is a philosophical and even a religious work on the meaning of life and death. Also, from a mere dramaturgical viewpoint, the twenty-five minute intermission after the second act lowers the tension of the drama and softens the thriller. Of course, the final 'special effects' are impressive; yet they are more apt for Wagner's Götterdämmerung than for Vec Makropoulos. This is also because they are not fully in line with the music from the pit.

Angela Denoke as Emilia Marty in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
The musical direction was entrusted to Zubin Mehta, his debut with this music drama at the age of seventy-four. His arm movements were large and his tempos nearly late romantic -- quite different from the style of Esa-Pekka Salonen in Salzburg or of Simon Rattle in a not so far away production in Aix-en-Provence. He is certainly more at ease with the romantic and late romantic repertory than with Janácek; nonetheless the orchestra responded very well to his conducting. The overall result was a rather special interpretation of the score.

Michael Ebner as Hauk Sendorf and Angela Denoke as Elina Makropoulos in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
Angela Denoke (E M) is one of the few sopranos who can cope with a role where she has to go from conversation to declamation to a large arioso with impervious Cs; she received ovation in Florence, as in Salzburg a few months ago and in La Scala in 2009. Miro Dvorsky, a good 'spinto' tenor, is Albert Gregor, E M's great-grandchild falling in love with her. Andrzej Dobber, an effective baritone, is a mellifluous Jaroslav Prus, who sells E M the 'Vec Makropoulos' for some (frigid) sex. Mirko Guadagnini is Jaroslav's son, who commits suicide when he understands that his father has had intercourse with the woman he fell in love with. Jolana Fogasová deserves special praise as the young Krista who burns the 'Vec Makropoulos'. A very successful evening.

Jan Vacik as Vitek in Janácek's 'Vec Makropoulos' at the Teatro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2011 Gianluca Moggi. Click on the image for higher resolution
Venice's La Fenice has Vec Makropoulos in its 2012 program; it may be a good idea to revive this production, with some staging corrections.
Copyright © 29 October 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

LEOS JANACEK
ZUBIN MEHTA
FLORENCE
ITALY
CZECH REPUBLIC
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