A tale of lawyers and lovers, music and magic... On one level, Janáček’s fable about a woman who outlives her natural lifespan by hundreds of years is a gothic opera of dark whimsy; on another it’s a thought-provoking meditation on the acceptance of ageing, the tenacity of greed and being careful what you wish for. Yet The Makropulos Affair does not always punch the gut as brilliantly as Olivia Fuchs does in this aesthetically luxuriant staging, first seen three years ago at Welsh National Opera and now revived by Scottish Opera as part of a fruitful and economically sensible bilateral exchange agreement between the two companies.
The 2022 production team has reassembled intact for the Scottish run. They have only made one adjustment to the staging that I could discern, but it’s a good one: Fuchs has replaced a lame episode of audience address that had previously covered the lengthy scene change between Acts 1 and 2 with the third movement of Janáček’s unfinished symphony The Danube (Dunaj), a contemporaneous piece that the composer derived from material he had excised from Act 2. Pre-recorded by the orchestra and soprano Catriona Hewitson (who sings Kristina in the production) it is a typically inspired improvement by this impressive, questing director.
The 2025 cast is almost entirely new. Only tenor Mark Le Brocq returns as Vivek, a lawyer’s clerk and Kristina’s father, and now that he is no longer saddled with that interstitial patter (yes, it was he who delivered it) his performance was able to shine in its own unbroken context. Three other tenors graced the production: American Ryan Capozzo was a dynamic, vocally robust presence as Albert Gregor, the hapless suitor who attempts to seduce our heroine unaware that she is his ancestor; Alasdair Elliott brought a notable pathos to the ancient lothario Count Hauk-Šendorf, the husk of an aristocrat who held a candle for her in an earlier incarnation (and still does), while as the opera’s most tragic figure, Janek Prus, Michael Lafferty lent a doleful yearning to his fawn-like infatuation with a woman 15 times his age.
All the above are in thrall to Emilia Marty, née Elina Makropulos, a 339-year-old woman who adopts multiple identities across the centuries. Orla Boylan’s creation oozed charisma and reeked of entitlement, driven to emotional cruelty by the lassitude of a life too-long lived. The Irish dramatic soprano brought an uncanny realism to her role, abetted by a trio of stylish wigs (one per act) that added to her mystique and helped veil her true self. However, for all her beauty of tone and mastery of decibels, Boylan’s diction had me reaching for the surtitles despite the singable clarity of David Pountney’s translation.
At the start, Makropulos is living as Emilia Marty, an operatic diva, and she is concerned that her age-defying secret potion is about to wear off. She knows that its formula lies in a hidden cubby-hole in the apartment now owned by Baron Prus (baritone Roland Wood – excellent) and when he plays hard-to-get over releasing it she agrees to spend one joyless night with him in exchange for the paper. Soon, though, old age finally creeps up on E.M. and, exhausted into a desire to die a natural death, she hands the document to her operatic protégée. Instead of using it to make the potion, however, Kristina (arrestingly played and sung by Hewitson) destroys it.
So strong is the cast that even the redoubtable Henry Waddington, who sings Dr Kolenatý, the senior lawyer and Vitek’s boss, seemed undervalued by the production. That is not his fault. Thanks to Nicola Turner’s sweeping designs and a startling video sequence by Sam Sharples that depicts E.M.’s various lives tick-tocking their way through the sands of time, the spectator’s eye is filled with felicities. Scenic energy is exercised more by miracles of stagecraft (e.g. the ascent to the fly gallery of whole piles of legal papers in Kolenatý’s dusty office, all of it superbly lit by Robbie Butler) than by a be-suited pen-pusher.
On opening night the conductor Martyn Brabbins wrought a fabulous performance of Janáček’s richly perfumed score from the Scottish Opera Orchestra. As for Fuchs, she continues her golden run of form. Not only is this Makropulos Affair a glorious surreal fantasy but her next effort for WNO would be Death in Venice (2024), a production that has already attained classic status. There, as here, the storytelling was unambiguous and shot through with visual ingenuity and flair. Will Scotland get to see that as well? Knock on doors, march through streets, do anything legal to make it happen. For the time being, though, this glowing night of Janáček will do nicely.
