Czech Republic Jaromir Weinberger, Schwanda the Bagpiper: Soloists, Pupils of the Olga Kyndlová Ballet Faculty, Nationwide Theatre Opera Ballet, Refrain and Orchestra / Zbyněk Müller (conductor). Nationwide Theater, Prague, 24.6.2023. (RP)

Manufacturing:
Director and Lighting – Vladimír Morávek
Units – Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes – Sylva Zimula Hanáková
Choreography – Lucie Mertová
Movies – Michal Mocňák
Refrain grasp – Pavel Vaněk
Dramaturgy – Ondřej Hučín

Solid:
Schwanda – Jiří Brückler
Dorotka – Jana Šrejma Kačírková
Babinský – Martin Šrejma
Ice Queen – Kateřina Jalovcová
Magician, Second Soldier – Roman Janál
Satan – Jiří Sulženko
The Satan’s Famulus, Captain of the Satan’s Guard – Dušan Růžička
Choose – Vladimír Doležal
Executioner, First Soldier – Vít Šantora

One didn’t need to be Czech to benefit from the Nationwide Theatre’s manufacturing of Jaromír Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper, however it might have been a plus. The Czech-Jewish composer described his most celebrated work as a ‘folks’s opera’, and director Vladimír Morávek ran with that concept. From kids within the viewers singing people songs to conventional Czech bagpipe music, this Schwanda the Bagpiper was a joyous celebration of Czech tradition.

Morávek and his manufacturing group didn’t look forward to the curtain to rise earlier than immersing the viewers of their fantastical mixture of conventional and supernatural. From the second you entered the theater, you had been greeted by human-sized strutting hens and roosters. As soon as inside, nevertheless, the manufacturing burst the bounds of the stage, spilling out into the viewers with sights and sounds that Weinberger couldn’t probably have imagined.

Schwanda the Bagpiper was not precisely a preferred success when it premiered on the Nationwide Theatre in 1927. The opera solely turned a world hit after a serious rework by Weinberger, when it started to be carried out in a German-language model. Subsequently translated into 17 languages, Schwanda the Bagpiper obtained over 2000 performances in Europe and the US, together with runs at London’s Covent Backyard and New York’s Metropolitan Opera

The opera, nevertheless, disappeared from the repertoire when the Nazis banned Weinberger’s music within the late Thirties and, subsequently, conflict introduced cultural life to a halt in a lot of the world. Weinberger escaped the horrors of the Holocaust by transferring to the US in 1939 the place he taught and continued to compose. His music has had a resurgence in recent times because of the rising curiosity in composers and artists whose voices had been silenced by the Nazis. The Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper, nevertheless, have at all times been widespread orchestral favorites.

Within the opera, the newlyweds Schwanda and Dorotka are visited by Babinský, a Robin Hood-like character with supernatural powers. Schwanda, a easy farmer with distinctive skills as a bagpipe participant, is well satisfied that married life will probably be boring, and off he goes in the hunt for the mysterious and alluring Ice Queen whom Babinský has described to him.

The Queen is below the ability of an evil Magician, who gained management over her when she consented to the dying of the Prince to whom she was betrothed in alternate for a coronary heart of ice and a diamond scepter. Schwanda breaks the spell by enjoying his bagpipes and wins the Queen’s affections. He accepts her supply of marriage and kisses her. Dorotka’s sudden look, nevertheless, places a wrench within the works. The Queen has Schwanda and Dorotka imprisoned, with the bagpipe participant condemned to dying.

Babinský rescues Schwanda from the executioner’s axe and helps the couple escape. When Dorotka questions her husband’s constancy, he swears that he has by no means a lot as kissed the Queen, including that the Satan can take him if he’s mendacity. In a flash, Schwanda finds himself in hell. With Dorotka lamenting that her jealousy is the foundation of Schwanda’s predicament, Babinský seems on the scene, to not consolation the distraught girl however to profess his love for her. She rebuffs his advances and one way or the other manages to persuade him to rescue Schwanda.

Upon the promise of being reunited with Dorotka, Schwanda has signed his soul over to the Satan. Though the Satan has acquired energy over Schwanda, he refuses to play his bagpipes. Babinský, who’s well-known to the denizens of hell, seems and challenges the Satan to a high-stakes card sport. By magic and deceit, Babinský wins and, throughout the ensuing mayhem, Schwanda and Dorotka are whisked house. Undaunted, Babinský goes off in the hunt for new adventures.

Morávek and his group captured the opera’s combine of people and occult on this wildly imaginative manufacturing. The explosion of visible parts and the juxtaposition of the pure and fantastical might lack coherency, however they do demand consideration. Extra importantly, the viewers was delighted by all of it.

The folks parts had been current within the blue and white conventional designs of Schwanda and Dorotka’s costumes, in addition to within the furnishings and buildings of their farm. The poultry had been fanciful and principally child-friendly, as had been the enormous figures of kittens. Among the pure parts, nevertheless, had been menacing, particularly the enormous blue European hares. An imposing stag typically dominated the stage however had no apparent ink to the story, and none was supplied.

Custom additionally reigned within the Ice Queen’s realm and the depths of hell. Costumes had been fanciful however practical. The Satan and his minions all sported imposing horns. A tiny ballerina carrying a crown flitted easy throughout the stage occasionally. The fires of hell burned brightly from a gap in an intricate backdrop. Evoking each the traditional and fashionable, the ever-present backdrop was a combination of the pure and the grotesque. It might have been an try at imposing cohesion on the manufacturing however solely contributed to the visible overload.

If there’s an opera that might conquer the barrage of photos, sounds and motion in Morávek’s idea, nevertheless, it’s Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper with its complicated, colourful, nearly magical rating. His fashion defies classification with a mixture of the tonal splendors of Mahler and Richard Strauss and revolutionary therapy of Czech folks music. It’s readily obvious why audiences as soon as flocked to performances.

The all-Czech solid was very good. Baritone Jiří Brückler’s Schwanda had a complicated mixture of naiveté and bravura that was matched by his equally polished and nuanced singing. As Dorotka, soprano Jana Šrejma Kačírková confirmed a steely willpower in pursuing her errant husband. Her supple soprano had simply the precise little bit of metallic to chop by means of each Weinberg’s thick orchestrations and specific her character’s complicated feelings.

Mezzo-soprano Kateřina Jalovcová, attired in a outstanding robe with a panel of surprising lime inexperienced, captured the Ice Queen’s emotional U-turns with wealthy tone and noteworthy sang-froid. Because the Satan, bass Jiří Sulženko was as deliciously sinister as he was witty.

The one musical shortcoming of the efficiency was the steadiness between the singers and orchestra, which fell completely on the shoulders of conductor Zbyněk Müller. It was most pronounced within the opening scenes when all of the singers struggled to be heard. Martin Šrejma fared the worst in his bravura Act I aria wherein Babinský efficiently tempts Schwanda to desert his spouse in the hunt for journey. As soon as Müller acquired the orchestra below management, Müller’s fantastic Babinský might be loved in all his glory.

Stability apart, Müller paced the efficiency expertly and carried out with fashion. The string entrances within the Fugue had been crisp and forceful. When it comes to pleasure and polish, the brass enjoying was peerless. Collectively, the refrain sang with sturdy tone, however as actors created a myriad of characters that enlivened every scene.

This revival of Schwanda the Bagpiper is a part of Musica non grata, a joint endeavor by the Czech Republic and Germany to revive the inventive legacy of composers who contributed to the musical lifetime of Czechoslovakia when it was an unbiased nation between the 2 World Wars, however had been persecuted by the Nazis on account of faith, race, politics or sexual orientation.

The morning earlier than the efficiency, I had traveled the quick distance from Prague to Terezin (Theresienstadt), which served as a Nazi transit camp for Czech Jews who had been in the end deported to killing facilities, focus camps and factories as compelled labor. Terezin’s detainees, few of whom survived, had been primarily Jewish students, philosophers, scientists, visible artists and musicians of all kinds.

Weinberger escaped that destiny, however the Nazis supposed that Schwanda the Bagpiper can be erased from the world’s cultural panorama. As an alternative, it’s as soon as once more delighting audiences on this outstanding manufacturing from the Nationwide Theater the place it was first carried out.

Rick Perdian