Leoš Janáček

When a beautiful young woman in rural Moravia becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she learns that love is sometimes only skin-deep. Janáček took Gabriela Preissová's grim tale of infanticide and redemption, and condensed it into a masterful, spine-chilling drama. The tragic plight of the protagonists is presented with unsentimental realism that cannot help but trigger a response of deep compassion. Premiered at the National Theatre in the composer's hometown of Brno 115 years ago, the opera took him nine years to complete and is the first in which his distinctive voice can clearly be heard.

In the forest, the animals and insects are playing and dancing. The Forester enters and lies down against a tree for a nap. A curious Vixen Cub inquisitively chases a frog right into the lap of the surprised forester who forcibly takes the vixen home as a pet. Time passes and we see the Vixen, now grown up into a young adult tied up in the forester's yard with the conservative old dachshund. Fed up with life in confinement, the vixen chews through her rope and runs off to freedom.

The tale of a quick-witted fox and her escape from confinement for a life in the forest.

At the heart of Věc Makropulos is a recipe for a life-prolonging elixir invented by the doctor Hieronymus Makropulos for Emperor Rudolf II. It was tested on the doctor's beautiful daughter, who has now been on earth for 337 years and has had countless affairs over the generations. In the end, however, the seemingly young woman has to realize that an endless life on this side of the world only brings loneliness.

An old man comes across a fascinating archive, then meets a woman who introduces him to the life of a banker, patron and philanthropist. A moving essay that is part documentary, part film diary.

Short documentary about Cine Art Palácio in Recife-PE, Brazil.

Janáček's three-act opera Katya Kabanova, staged by Barrie Kosky and staged at the Felsenreitschule by Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša with an international cast of soloists, was performed on August 7 at the 2022 Salzburg Festival. The opera is based on the play The Storm by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. Set in a small Russian town, the story revolves around Káta, who is trapped in a loveless marriage to an abusive man named Boris. When she meets and falls in love with a young man named Vána Kudrjáš, she finally experiences happiness and passion. But their relationship is short-lived, as Boris finds out and forces Káta to confess her infidelity in front of the entire town. The opera explores themes of social conformity, oppression, and the consequences of forbidden love. Stage director Barrie Kosky creates an intimate but impressive setting in the magnificent Felsenreitschule.

Condensing the life stories – memories of prison in Silesia – related by Dostoyevsky in his work The House of the Dead, Leoš Janáček composed an opera filled with burning desire and longing. Contagious savagery, cruelty and brutality are exacerbated by the confines of the prison. However, within its concrete walls emerge both tenderness and cruelty at the sight of an injured bird; a multitude of stories and highly personal monologues. With this production, first performed at the Wiener Festwochen in 2007, the Paris Opera pays tribute to Patrice Chéreau.

Premiered in 1926, Leoš Janáček’s absorbing masterpiece Veˇc Makropulos reflects all the dominant musical styles of the early 20th century, from Bohemian tunefulness to big Straussian phrases, Berg-like jaggedness and primeval rhythms. With the “breathtakingly grandiose” (Salzburger Nachrichten) Angela Denoke in the lead role, this emotionallypowerful opera was given superior treatment at the hands of the Wiener Philharmoniker under Esa-Pekka Salonen. Recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele on 8 & 30 August 2011. Angela Denoke stars as Emilia Marty, with Raymond Very as Albert Gregor, Peter Hoare as Vitek, Jurgita Adamonyté as Krista, and Johan Reuter as Jaroslav Prus. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker.

We are off on an excursion, two excursions in fact, in the company of a landlord from Prague, who is, let us say, a little rough around the edges. The first journey of Mr Brouček is to the Moon where our beer-drinking hero (literally ‘Mr Beetle’) meets the oh-so sophisticated Moon-dwellers. In the second, we travel through time to the early 15th century to a heroic period in Czech history when the Czechs fought off armies of crusaders from the rest of Europe. Will Mr Brouček fare any better in Prague circa 1420, when Czechs are on the eve of a famous victory defending their Hussite faith? For this new production from the heart of the composer’s home country, Janáček Festival Brno has entrusted the staging to the famous Canadian director, Robert Carsen who thus opens the 2024 Festival with this, his sixth production of a Janáček opera.

An intellectual match between two dramatically different artists, one permanently unsure and frustrated and questioning everything, the other an astonishing storyteller perfectly at peace, unacquainted with introspection and reliant on intuition.

A young woman in love with a composer is forced by her mother to take a rich suitor. When the two lovers are reunited years later, happiness is theirs for the taking, but a tragedy happens that changes everything. Robert Carsen’s premiere of Destiny opened the 2020 edition of the Janáček Brno Festival (International Opera Award winner 2019). It comprises some of Janáček’s most magnificent music, which sways from the peaks of romantic rapture to the depths of desperation and back again.

For its traditional outdoor season-closing concert held on Hradcany Square at the foot of Prague Castle, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Finnish-Ukrainian Dalia Stasevska performs works by Leos Janacek, Lili Boulanger, Georges Bizet and Maurice Ravel.

One of several collaborative dance films by the Brothers Quay & (dancer, choreographer) William Tuckett. Little enough info around on line, but there's briefly by way of Wikipedia entry. Adapted rather loosely from the works of the E.T.A. Hoffman. Familiar Quays' tropes, much in evidence: automata, trompe l'oeil effects, etc. No credit on the sound design (which is fairly elaborate), tho' that is possibly Larry Sider.

The embittered widow, Kostelnicka, drowns her infant grandson to save her beloved stepdaughter Jenufa from the shame and hardship of raising an illegitimate child.

Nina Stemme, Eva Marton, Victoria Cortez, Jorma Silvasti, and Par Lindskog star in this Gran Teatre del Liceu production of the Janacek opera conducted by Peter Schneider and directed by Olivier Tambosi.

A series of poems.

Set in a Siberian prison camp, Janacek's final opera centers on the experiences of recent arrival Alexandre Petrovitch Goriantchikov (Olaf Bar), a nobleman who finds relief from the harsh conditions in the friendship of the illiterate Alyeya (Eric Stoklossa). Recorded at the Grand Theatre de Provence, this stage production is directed by the well-respected Patrice Chereau and features famed conductor Pierre Boulez. Filmed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on 20 July 2007.

Dancers from the Compagnie Hervé Koubi take over the Château d'Ormesson for Sur Mesure. This performance, a blend of dance and acrobatics, is brought to life by Quatuor Voce and Jasser Haj Youssef.

The film tells the exciting life of the great Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854-1928), also known by the thick silver hair that crowned his head and his strong character, which could overcome the adversities of fate.

Stage director Frank Castorf “might have been born to direct From the House of the Dead” (Opera Today). His gritty, visually striking adaptation brings bold modern and postmodern touches to Janáček’s masterwork without ever overshadowing the intense forward momentum of the music, conducted to dramatic perfection by Simone Young and sung by an all-star cast in Munich. Janáček adapted Dostoevsky for this powerfully compelling opera set in a Siberian prison camp, full of starkly contrasting moods and motifs, unusual in its episodic structure. The last opera Janáček ever composed, its third act was on his desk when he died in 1928; attempts by his students to “complete” his orchestration have largely fallen away over the decades in favor of the original version. Despite the grimness of the setting and the brutality of several characters, the composer’s compassion shines through in tender moments, movingly illustrating his motto for the work: “in every creature, a spark of God.”

A young, newly orphaned woman becomes the target of religious bigots when her individuality marks her as a pariah. This allegorical animated short from Klaas Rusticus explores the struggles of maintaining uniqueness in a world where the voice of the individual must be silenced. The 41-minute short is set to the provocative choral masterpiece "Glagolitic Mass" from composer Leos Janacek and performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.