An open air concert will open the new season of the National Theatre Brno

30 August 2019, 9:00
An open air concert will open the new season of the National Theatre Brno

The 2019/2020 theatre season of the National Theatre Brno (NdB) will be officially opened by a joint performance of NdB artists on the piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre. Under the baton of the conductor Marko Ivanović there will appear soloists such as Jana Šrejma Kačírková, Pavla Vykopalová, Václava Krejčí Housková, Roman Hoza, Jiří Sulženko, Ondřej Koplík and others. Together with them the choir and orchestra of the NdB Janáček Theatre's opera ensemble will appear and present the upcoming season and its titles.

The Janáček Theatre will once again open its gates to spectators after the theatre holidays. During the upcoming season, opera titles such as The Tales of Hoffmann, The Knight of the Rose, The Greek Passion and an operatic production of Ferda Mravenec [Ferdy the Ant] for children will be introduced. Sampling of these titles will be offered during an open air concert, which is announced to take place on the piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre on 6 September 2019 starting from 18:00 o'clock.      

The duo of directors Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský, also known as SKUTR, are certainly among those creators who gained their reputation through their imaginative stage productions. They introduced themselves to the Brno audience with their poetic drama version of Cunning Little Vixen and now are about to welcome them to the opera. It will be them who will start the 2018/2019 season with their staging of the famous opera about the eternal quest for the ideal of woman, The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach.          

Other premieres of the season include works from the 20th and 21st centuries. After thirty-five years, The Knight of the Rose [Die Rosenkavalier], a work by Richard Strauss, will be returning to the stage of the Janáček Theatre; the composer shaped the appearance of the opera at the beginning of the 20th century. Following on the successful Rules of Good Behaviour in Modern Society by Michal Nejtek, we will present another opera made to order directly for our ensemble – Monument, a work inspired by the destiny of the sculptor Otakar  Švec. The author of the music is Marko Ivanović, while the libretto was written by David Radok, who will also undertake the direction.       

The work of Bohuslav Martinů is at home in Brno. There have been a number of world premieres of his operas and ballets, and at present the ensemble of Janáček's Opera is the only one in the Czech Republic that has three stage pieces by Martinů on its repertoire. During the 2019/2020 season, when we are about to commemorate 60 years since his death and 130 years since his birth, these three works  will be joined by another one – the  opera The Greek Passion, a profound humanistic message from the composer, which was already staged here years ago in its Czechoslovak premiere. The musical production of this great choral opera will be the first collaboration between  the outstanding Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil and the ensemble of the Janáček Opera.    

The closure of the season will be dedicated to children. Ferdy the Ant by Ondřej Sekora is an evergreen of children's literature and its opera production, created by the Brno composer Evžen Zámečník is a witty and entertaining introduction to the world of opera for the whole family. This stage play for children will be directed by Arnošt Goldflam.

Janáček Theatre / archive photo

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