For Janáček enthusiasts, a trip to the composer’s hometown of Brno for their bi-annual festival dedicated to his works is a pilgrimage worth making. The centrepiece of this year’s celebrations is an unusual pairing of Janáček’s final opera, From the House of the Dead which premiered in Brno in 1930, two years after the composer’s death, with his late choral masterpiece, the Glagolitic Mass (1927). The result is a stunningly realised staging that is nonetheless built on some potentially problematic dramaturgy.
In a fortuitous twist of fate, the musical side of the production is in the hands of none other than Jakub Hrůša, another Brno hometown boy, who was recently announced as the new music director of The Royal Opera, starting in 2025. There has already been speculation as to whether Hrůša’s appointment might mean a shift to more Central European repertoire in London and the company would be well-served if provocative stagings like this one by Jiří Heřman were to make their way there.
Not that Heřman’s concept doesn’t provoke some serious questioning. He takes the Christian themes from Janáček’s setting of the Catholic mass – the work’s title comes from the early Slavic, Glagolitic alphabet favoured by the pan-Slavic enthusiast composer – and literally fuses them with the opera, adapted from Dostoevsky’s 1862 novel of loosely connected prisoner narratives. Many of their tales relate to the mistreatment of women, here made flesh as extras, a dancer and even the soprano soloist from the Mass, Kateřina Kněžíková. She makes an affecting, silent appearance in House of the Dead as Akulina, the murdered wife in prisoner Šiškov’s story. As the conclusion of the opera seamlessly morphs into the Mass, it becomes clear that the all-in-white women’s chorus (absent from the prison drama) and female soloists represent a kind of angelic group which dispenses forgiveness and eternal redemption to the hardened criminals we meet in the first part of the program.
It is unusual to see Christian belief in eternal life played out so literally on today’s operatic stage. The production concludes with a striking image of the “prisoners” (now the male chorus in the Mass) silhouetted at the back of the stage in communion with the Christ-like figure of Orel (the incredibly athletic Michal Heriban who plays and integral part in the staging), in a kind of Last Supper scenario. Orel means “eagle”, but also, the “light of God”. In the libretto, the prisoners find an injured eagle which in some stagings is released at the end as a symbol of freedom. Heřman turns the eagle into a Christ figure seen hanging in a crucifix pose as the curtain rises. He interacts with the prisoners and the various “female apparitions”, and during the Mass his connection to the Christian Jesus is even more blatant.
Despite its reactionary tropes about Christianity and women idealised as saving angels, the production’s visual language is so persuasive and the integration of the two works so seamless that, in the end, it sends a powerful message of forgiveness and hope. All praise should go to set designer Tomáš Rusín, costume designer Zuzana Štefunková-Rusínová and Heřman’s own lighting for creating a visual counterpart that so successfully binds the disparate parts. The final image of the prisoner Aljeja running towards a stunning mountainscape signifies he has found peace, be it in heaven or, perhaps, just freedom and forgiveness here on earth.
Musically, the evening was a triumph. The National Theatre Brno Janáček Opera Orchestra relished the blaring, brass-heavy score of the Mass as well as Janáček’s characteristic writing for strings that can turn from prickly to emotion-filled melody on a dime. Hrůša proved to be an incredibly physically-engaged musical leader, clearly in his element and, surprisingly, conducting his hometown forces for the first time. The Janáček Opera Chorus was thrilling in both the opera and the Mass, pouring out a big, incisive sound when required, but also able to pare their volume down to a whisper. Their typically Central European, focused sound is a beautiful antidote to more vibrato-laden choruses one hears in North American opera houses.
Amongst a strong ensemble cast of such high quality, it is difficult to single out specific singers. However, baritone Pavol Kubáň stood out in Šiškov’s extended narration with his clear projection of text and handsome tone. Tenor Peter Berger was very strong in his contributions as tenor soloist in the Mass, but it should be mentioned that, except for the soprano, all the solos were shared by two singers, further enmeshing characters from the opera into the sacred work. Soprano Kněžíková (a celebrated Kátya Kabanová at Glyndebourne in 2021) sent out gleaming tone in the Mass.
Despite delivering a message that might not sit comfortably with some modern sensibilities, this was a powerful and musically satisfying presentation of two thorny 20th-century masterpieces.
