Premiere 12 June 2020, Janáček Theatre
Author: Evžen Zámečník
Musical Preparation: Jakub Klecker
Conductor: Jakub Klecker, Pavel Šnajdr
Director: Arnošt Goldflam
Set Design: Jaroslav Milfajt
Costume Design: Petra Goldflamová-Štětinová
Lighting Design: Pavla Beranová
Choreography: Martin Pacek
Chorus Master: Klára Složilová Roztočilová
Assistant Conductor: Patrik Červák, Lubomít Zelenák
Assistant Stage Director: Otakar Blaha
Performed in the original Czech, with Czech and English surtitles
How does an opera work? Ferda Mravanec knows best!
Ferdy the Ant – work of all kinds! He is easily recognizable with his red scarf with black dots around his neck, and he’s friends with Gwendolyn the ladybird and Bug Butterfingers. He’s always in a good mood and he knows how to deal with everything – in other words, he’s an ideal hero for a children´s opera. The cult character of Ferdy comes from a series of illustrated story books concerned with the world of insects by Ondřej Sekora. These inspired Brno composer and conductor Evžen Zámečník (1939-2018) to create, as he said himself, this “pretend opera” for both young and old which had its very successful world premiere in 1971 at the Brno Opera. The two-part opera starts by familiarizing children with how an opera functions and then it’s time to start acting. Everyone joins Ferdy for morning exercises on a meadow, where a drunk bumblebee plays for them. After that, Ferdy helps Cricket fix his TV set so that he can watch the hockey, Bug Butterfingers organizes a performance by a swimming pool and at the end Ferdy flies home in an airship made from a spider’s web. For director Arnošt Goldflam it will be his first cooperation with the Opera, but he is very familiar with the world of children as he is the author of several successful books of fairy tales.
