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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > The Opera House > From the House of the Dead @ the Wiener Festwochen
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Author Topic: From the House of the Dead @ the Wiener Festwochen  (Read 409 times)
opilec
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« on: 20:43:16, 21-05-2007 »
...
« Last Edit: 04:30:39, 08-10-2007 by opilec » Logged
Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #1 on: 20:54:07, 21-05-2007 »
Ah, sorry to see a tenor Alyeya Sad   That's a betrayal of everything Janacek was feeling about the role,  when he wrote to Stosslova that he imagine her to be Alyeya...

But the rest of the cast looks stonkingly good, and I would imagine this is "a very strong production".  Sadly I won't be able to get anywhere near it,  but perhaps it will make it to DVD?

Cheers
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
trained-pianist
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« Reply #2 on: 20:56:59, 21-05-2007 »
That looks very interesting to be able to hear. I did not know about this opera of Janacek.
I don't even know the plot or the period it was written in.

May be one day I will be able to hear it, one should never lose hope.

Thank you for posting about the opera.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 21:08:07, 21-05-2007 »
Hi t-p

Quote
I don't even know the plot or the period it was written in.

Ah, but you do...  it's Записки из Мертвего Дома in Russian - the libretto is taken from episodes in Dostoevsky's "book".  (Of course, in reality it was not a "book", but appeared as a sequence of magazine articles originally - it was only printed in book form much later).

It's really an amazing work, I completely agree with Opilec here.  Probably the most remarkable thing is that there is no "story", and there are no "main characters"...  it is just a sequence of episodes in the life of the prison-camp.  As a kind of "linking theme" we see Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov (who is symbolically "Dostoevsky" in the story, he's the "political prisoner from St Petersburg") arrive in the prison, befriend the illiterate Dagestani boy Alyeya (I suppose he is really "Ali" in Dagestani) and teach him to read..  and then at the end Goryanchikov is freed due to orders from St Petersburg.   The only other character whose story might also run through the opera is Filka Morozov, if it really is him who dies at the end under the name "Luka Kuzmich"...  or is it Shishkov's insane delusion that it's his tormentor, Filka?
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
trained-pianist
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« Reply #4 on: 21:15:47, 21-05-2007 »
Reiner,
Now I understand. I was confused with Joyce novel isle of the dead (or something like that).

I only recently found out that Janacek was influeced by Russian writers and composers and that he visited Russia. I did not know that.
Thanks to radio 3 I know now.

Of course in my time they did not give us Janacek in any music history classes. In fact I don't know how I know his name, but I seems to know it from a long time ago.

My education is so bad, Rainer. I have so many limitations. Also I left Russia young (which is a good thing), but I completely lost touch with music for a while because we just tried to survive and I tried to help my mr to study.
I did go to MA programme in Ca, but most courses there were concerned with early music (Renaissance).
They also gave us a lot of old style harmony. I did have one contemporary music class but it was so bad.
I feel sorry for myself now.
But thank you so much for Russian translation. I read it, but a long time ago.
Also on radio 3 they said that Janacek admired Russian composers, but he wanted to preserve his Morovian original flavour and not to be supressed by pan Russia (so to say). This is my free arrangement of what I heard and what I understood in a program.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #5 on: 21:26:05, 21-05-2007 »
I know Dostoevsky's story and can see similarities in the plot.
He was pardoned just before the execution by a royal pardon. It was very traumatic and affected his phyche. He was not completely healthy man after that (many people say that) and this is why his novels have such strange characters.
I can not say that I took to him easily. He sounds strange in Russian, but in English he sounds much better. Sometimes in translation they interpret the meaning and for me it made it easier to read.

Otherwise Tolstoy is much healthier reading and not so dark. But it is only my feeling and as I get older I actually like him more.
I never knew his books were used as plots for operas. I think there is an opera White nights, but I don't remember the composer.

Thank you Reiner and opilec. This is very interesting topic for me. I really love Janacek now a lot. I liked him from the start. The first music of his that I heard was Cunning little vixen and I loved it.
The orchestration is fantastic (although we had a small ensemble playing, but I could hear it).
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #6 on: 20:17:23, 23-05-2007 »
opilec, thank you for your post.
I hope I will not forget and will be able to see it.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #7 on: 20:18:06, 23-05-2007 »
Thanks for the link, Opilec Smiley
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
trained-pianist
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« Reply #8 on: 06:45:29, 07-06-2007 »
I was too busy even to remember to watch the link. But the positive is that at least I heard about this opera exsistence and that it is very dissonant, that Boulez conducted it and that it was staged in Gulag and that the opera is based on Dostoevsky.
In St Petersburg during White Night festival there are doing Janufa. May Reiner can go there. I think he wrote something about it.
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