LEOS SOLOISTS /ENO/ SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS ˇ JANÁC ˇ EK : THE MAKROPULOS CASE CHAN 3138(2) CHANDOS CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) FFrontront IInlay.inddnlay.indd 1 119/12/069/12/06 110:11:150:11:15 Leosˇ Janácˇek (1854 – 1928) The Makropulos Case Opera in three acts Libretto by the composer after Karel Cˇapek’s comedy Veˇc Makropulos English translation by Norman Tucker © Lebrecht Music & Arts Library Photo Music © Lebrecht Emilia Marty (E.M.), a famous diva Cheryl Barker soprano Dr Kolenatý, a lawyer Neal Davies bass-baritone Vítek, his head clerk John Graham-Hall tenor Kristina, Vítek’s daughter Elena Xanthoudakis soprano Albert Gregor, a litigant Robert Brubaker tenor Baron Jaroslav Prus, his opposing litigant John Wegner baritone Janek Prus, Baron Prus’s son Thomas Walker tenor Count Hauk-Šendorf, one of E.M.’s former beaux Graham Clark tenor Stage Hand Graeme Danby bass Cleaner Kathleen Wilkinson mezzo-soprano Chambermaid Susanna Tudor-Thomas mezzo-soprano English National Opera Chorus Martin Merry chorus master English National Opera Orchestra Gonzalo Acosta leader Alexander Briger assistant conductor Sir Charles Mackerras Leosˇ Janácˇek 3 CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) BBook.inddook.indd 22-3-3 119/12/069/12/06 110:09:400:09:40 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Time Page Act I (35:45) 1 Prelude 5:22 [p. 76] 12 ‘Allow me to ask you this question’ 6:29 [p. 97] 2 ‘Oh dear, my goodness!’ 4:14 [p. 76] Prus, Marty Vítek, Gregor 13 ‘Is that you, Bertie?’ 9:17 [p. 99] 3 ‘Daddy, she really is wonderful’ 1:55 [p. 77] Marty, Gregor, Cleaner, Janek, Prus Kristina, Gregor, Vítek TT 66:24 4 ‘Come this way please’ 11:23 [p. 78] Kolenatý, Kristina, Marty, Gregor COMPACT DISC TWO 5 ‘Gone at last! 5:53 [p. 84] 6 ‘Emilia’ 4:10 [p. 87] Act III (29:34) Gregor, Marty 1 ‘Well? D’you hear me?’ 5:30 [p.103] 7 ‘Found it! We’ve found it’ 2:45 [p. 89] Marty, Prus, Chambermaid Kolenatý, Marty, Gregor, Prus 2 ‘Buenos dias Maxi! Why so early?’ 3:29 [p.105] Marty, Hauk, Chambermaid, Kolenatý, Gregor Act II (30:25) 3 ‘The seal and th’initials E.M.’ 12:20 [p.107] Gregor, Vítek, Kolenatý, Prus, Marty, Kristina 8 ‘Did you ever see such fl owers?’ 2:14 [p. 90] Cleaner, Stage Hand, Prus 4 ‘Fetch the doctor!’ 8:14 [p.112] Kolenatý, Marty, Gregor, Vítek, Prus, Kristina, Chorus 9 ‘Janek, come on. No one here will see us’ 6:35 [p. 91] Kristina, Janek, Prus, Marty, Gregor, Vítek 5 - 10 Interview with Sir Charles Mackerras 29:27 10 ‘Excuse me. Excuse me, may I…’ 4:15 [p. 95] Sir Charles Mackerras talks with Rodney Milnes about Hauk, Marty, Prus how he came to love Janácˇek, the man and the musician. 11 ‘And the next! Is that the lot?’ 1:34 [p. 96] TT 59:19 Marty, Vítek, Kristina, Janek, Prus, Gregor 4 5 CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) BBook.inddook.indd 44-5-5 119/12/069/12/06 110:09:410:09:41 On session: ?? Cheryl Barker as Emilia Marty 6 7 CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) BBook.inddook.indd 66-7-7 119/12/069/12/06 110:09:410:09:41 We were thrilled to be able to record The Makropulos Case ‘live’ at the London Coliseum in May 2006 with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting a great cast. Sir Charles conducted the UK première of Janácˇek’s gripping opera at Sadler’s Wells in 1964. As a bonus you can also hear him talking about his lifetime’s experience of Janácˇek’s music in conversation with Rodney Milnes. Sir Peter Moores, CBE, DL February 2007 Sir Peter Moores with a portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson by Lemuel Francis Abbott, acquired for Compton Verney © Lyndon Parker 8 9 CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) BBook.inddook.indd 88-9-9 119/12/069/12/06 110:09:430:09:43 Veˇc Makropulos – she will solve her problem. this material, his response was profoundly Janácˇek: The Makropulos Case Yet when she fi nds the answer, she rejects it. A tragic. He focused on the predicament of mystery indeed, wrapped in a riddle, enclosed a woman who had been granted the gift ‘Why should not old men be mad?’ This is known in the English-speaking world as in an enigma. All intriguing stuff, to be sure, of eternal life and as a result had become a what the great Irish poet W.B.Yeats wrote The Makropulos Case. but scarcely the raw material of lyric theatre. bitter, destructive human shell, beautiful and in one of his fi nal lyrics. Like his near The title itself is a paradox. The Czech So why did Janácˇek choose to transform fascinating on the outside and made of dust contemporary, Leosˇ Janácˇek, he was a late words ‘Veˇc Makropulos’ occur only in the this unlikely drama into his penultimate and ashes within. He set himself the task not ˇ developer, coming to creative maturity in fi nal act. The fi rst time we hear them, they opera? He had seen Karel Capek’s play The merely of embodying this creature in music his fi fties, and driven by similar demons – a refer to an ancient formula which promises Makropulos Affair performed in Prague late but of engaging our sympathy and love for her. fi erce nationalism, a passionate obsession eternal life. The second time, they are used in in 1922 and immediately applied to the A primary motive, as in so many of his late with a younger woman and a preoccupation a more general sense to mean ‘the Makropulos author for permission to fashion a libretto works, was his infatuation with a married with what he described as ‘the fascination stuff’ – much as in Mussorgsky’s opera, the from it. and Janácˇek were strange bedfellows. woman less than half his age. Janácˇek had ˇ of what’s diffi cult’. Yet even Yeats never title Khovanshchina is best translated as ‘The Capek was an urbane and sceptical Prague met Kamila Stösslová in 1917, when he was undertook artistic risks on the scale of Khovansky Business’. There is indeed a ‘Case’ dramatist, best known for his collaboration sixty-three and she was twenty-fi ve, and Janácˇek in the ten remarkable years which in the opera, but it is not the Makropulos with his brother on the allegorical Insect instantly fallen in love with her. He conducted witnessed the birth of almost all of his Case. It is a lawsuit which has been conducted Play and for introducing the word ‘robot’ an epic and largely one-sided correspondence musical masterpieces. In particular, in his over many generations between two branches into general coinage in his satire RUR. Like with her for the rest of his life. She inspired three last operas – The Cunning Little Vixen, of a family – one legitimate and the other not. George Bernard Shaw, whom he knew, each of his last four operas, the Glagolitic The Makropulos Case and From the House This dispute will only be resolved when an his Prague contemporary Franz Kafka and Mass, the Sinfonietta, a song cycle and two of the Dead – he set himself challenges authentic will is produced. So the opera’s plot another contemporary H.G.Wells, he was a string quartets. She may have been a reluctant which were not merely diffi cult but well-nigh is wound on a spring of mystery – who is the speculative writer, concerned with questions muse, but the artistic results of his obsession insane – and surmounted them triumphantly. real heir and how will we discover his identity? of human progress. In the same year as Shaw’s are breathtaking. In 1922, when Janácˇek ˇ ˇ Inspired respectively by a strip cartoon, The person who can answer these questions Back to Methuselah, Capek tackled the same fi rst came across Capek’s play, Kamila was a philosophical satire and a fi ctionalised is the central character of the piece, the diva issue of human mortality. The Makropulos doing her best to keep the celebrated but account of a Tsarist labour-camp, these three Emilia Marty, and what drives her is not this Affair asks a similar question – what would it troublesome composer at arm’s length. It is music dramas are among the most humane mystery but another greater and more terrible mean if we could live forever? Shaw’s answer scarcely surprising, therefore, that in his letters and moving musical documents of the one. What she is seeking is not the will, but was optimistic, promising infi nite spiritual to her shortly after beginning work on the ˇ twentieth century. None of them is stranger the ancient formula secreted along with it. development. Capek was ambivalent and left opera, Janácˇek stresses the coldness and harsh or more affecting than the opera which is When she locates this piece of paper – the real the question open. When Janácˇek seized on behaviour of his heroine: 10 11 CCHANHAN 33138(2)138(2) BBook.inddook.indd 110-110-11 119/12/069/12/06 110:09:430:09:43 A three-hundred-year-old beauty – and eternally there is an extra unseen character, who is present, as if a psychic trapdoor has opened Letters after his own correspondence with his young – but only burnt-out feeling. Brrr! Cold as constantly present in the music. We hear him in the stage. muse. The instrument and the theme associated ice! About such a woman I shall write an opera. fi rst in the prelude, in the offstage trumpets There is another sonic string which draws with it work in human juxtaposition to the And shortly after its completion: and drums.