The Makropulos Affair: Bayerische Staatsoper

About the Event

Come to a new production of Janáček's opera about eternal life, petty litigation and a beautiful singer.

The inheritance litigation of Gregor vs. Prus that has dragged on for generations comes to an unexpected turn when the singer Emilia Marty turns up with astonishingly detailed information about the past. The men caught up in the dispute lose their heads over this fascinating woman.

For his final opera, the aged Leoš Janáček falls back on a contemporary drama with a phantasy plot, the story of 337 year old Elina Makropulos. As a young woman a life‐prolonging elixir was tested on her. Since then she constantly changes countries, lovers and identities. As the effect of the elixir wears off she, tired of life but nonetheless fearful of death, searches for the recipe that could once again defer her ageing. Karel Čapek's ingenious comedy speculates on the meaning of mortality. Janáček turns it into a tragedy stretching across 300 years of loneliness.

In Czech with German surtitles

Conductor: Tomáš Hanus
Director: Árpád Schilling
Costume and Set design: Márton Ágh
Lighting: Tamás Bányai
Dramaturgy: Miron Hakenbeck
Chorusmaster: Sören Eckhoff

Emilia Marty: Nadja Michael
Albert Gregor: Pavel Cernoch
Vítek: Kevin Conners
Christa: Tara Erraught
Jaroslav Prus: John Lundgren
Janek: Dean Power
Dr. Kolenatý: Gustáv Beláček
A stage‐technician: Peter Lobert
A cleaning woman / Emilia's maid: Heike Grötzinger
Count Hauk‐Schendorf: Reiner Goldberg

Bayerisches Staatsorchester
The Chorus of Bayerische Staatsoper