The Makropulos Affair
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| Operas by Leoš Janáček |
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Šárka (1887) |
The Makropulos Affair (Czech Věc Makropulos) is a play written in 1922 by Karel Čapek that was turned into an opera by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Janáček's penultimate opera, it was, (like so much of his work), inspired by his infatuation with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman much younger than himself.
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[edit] Composition
Janáček's operatic version (often called The Makropulos Case) was written between 1923 and 1925. He had seen the play early in its run in Prague on 12 December 1922, and immediately saw its potential. He entered into a correspondence with Čapek, who was accommodating towards the idea, although legal problems in securing the rights to the play delayed work. When these problems were cleared on 10 September 1923, Janáček began work on the opera straight away. He wrote the libretto himself, and by December 1924 had completed the first draft of the work. He spent another year refining the score, before completing it on 3 December 1925.
Musically, much of the piece has little in the way of thematic development, instead presenting the listener with a mass of different motifs and ideas. Janáček's writings indicate that this was a deliberate ploy to give musical embodiment to the disruptive, unsettling main character Emilia Marty/Elina Makropulos. Only at the end of the final act, when Makropulos' vulnerability is revealed, does the music tap into and develop the rich lyrical vein that has driven the music throughout.
It is often argued that Emilia Marty, like the other female heroes in Janáček's later operas stands for one of the aspects of Kamila Stösslová, the woman with whom he was in love for the last decade of his life. Marty, with a clever and manipulative exterior hiding a core of vulnerability is a 'snapshot' of Stösslová, like the coquettish and shy Cunning Little Vixen and the tragic Káťa Kabanová.
[edit] Characters
- Emilia Marty, alias Elina Makropulos (soprano)
- Albert Gregor (tenor)
- Kolenatý, lawyer (bass)
- Vítek, Kolenatý's clerk (tenor)
- Kristina, his daughter and young singer (soprano)
- Baron Jaroslav Prus (baritone)
- Janek, his son (tenor)
- Count Hauk-Šendorf (tenor)
- a Stage Technician (baritone)
- Polizecka, a Charlady (soprano)
- a Maid (soprano).
[edit] Synopsis
The opera is based on the protagonist's search for a secret alchemic formula. As will be explained in the Third Act, the potion is able to extend one's lifetime by about 300 years. Emilia Marty, singer at the Vienna Opera, already used it: in 1922, when the opera is set, she is 337 years old. Over three centuries she assumed many identities, e.g. Eugenia Montez, Ekaterina Myshkin and Elian McGregor, in order to hide her exceptional age. Originally her name was Elina Makropulos, daughter of the alchemist Hieronymus, who lived in Prague at the end of the XVI century at the court of Emperor Rudolf II. Rudolf gave Hieronymus the task to prepare a potion that would extend his life by three centuries and ordered him to test it on Elina. She fell into a coma and Hieronymus was sent to prison. But after a week Elina woke up and fled with the formula, starting a new, itinerant life. She traveled around the world and became one of the best singers of all time. Unfortunately her secret prevented her from feeling real love for anybody: she had to leave too many husbands, sons, and lovers. Finally Emilia-Elina returns to Prague, where she hears that the wealthy Prus and middle-class Gregor families have been fighting a lawsuit for almost a century. Albert Gregor claims that his ancestor Ferdinand inherited some of the baron Joseph Ferdinand Prus' fortune at his death in 1827, while the Prus family denies such a legacy. Elina, who also had been Elian McGregor, mother of Ferdinand Gregor as well as baron Prus' lover, is able to provide Gregor and his lawyer Kolenatý with the concluding information to win the case. Ferdinand Gregor is the illegitimate child of Joseph Ferdinand Prus and Elian McGregor and a will in his favour is conserved between baron Jaroslav Prus' documents. In reality Emilia Marty is not interested in Gregor's claim. She wants to retrieve the potion's formula that she gave to her lover Joseph Ferdinand Prus and since then has been kept in the barons' archive. She desires to ensure herself another 300 years of life and youth.
[edit] First Act
In the legal study of Kolenatý, who provides a detailed exposure of the case, enters Emilia supplying her precious information. While Kolenatý is at Prus' manor for recovering the will, Emilia's charm starts having effect on Gregor. He falls in love at once, but he is coldly refused by a bored and indifferent Emilia. Even so she tries to take advantage of the situation by asking for the formula back. She finally learns from Kolenatý, who in the meantime had returned, that it is still in baron's possession.
[edit] Second Act
The day after an extraordinary performance with Emilia as leading actress, she is in the opera's wings dealing with cruel hardness with her admirers. To Gregor, Kristina and Vítek add Janek, the son of Jaroslav Prus, and the old and by now senile count Hauk-Šendorf. In Emilia he recognises Eugenia Montez, a gipsy woman he had an affair with in Andalusia half a century before. Finally arrives Jaroslav Prus. He doesn't understand the interest of Emilia in its family and the inexplicable role she played in Gregor's case. He puts the singer on the spot. Emilia induces the young Janek to try to embezzle the document for her. At the same time she tries to buy the formula from Prus, who agrees in exchange for one night of love.
[edit] Third Act
In the hotel room where Emilia and Prus spent the night arrives the tragic news of Janek's suicide. Despite Prus' grief, Emilia reacts with absolute indifference. Prus has hardly the time to express his disdain for her reaction when Gregor, Kolenatý, and the count Hauk arrive. Kolenatý and his client want to report Emilia for fraud because of the strange and inexplicable contradictions in her story. Emilia at last decides to tell the truth: she has been Elian, Elina and many others. They believe her only when the first signs of old age appear on her face, since in the meantime the potion's effect starts to vanish. Emilia decides not to drink it a second time and thereby let herself die, realizing that the perpetual youth gives nothing but pain and apathy. Only a short lived mundane can truly be happy. She gives Kristina the precious document. Emilia finally dies while the document that hides 'the secret Makropulos' is burned.
[edit] Performance
The world premiere of the opera was given at the National Theatre in Brno on December 18, 1926, conducted by František Neumann. It was given in Prague two years later, and in Germany in 1929, but did not become really popular until a production by the Sadler's Wells company in London in 1964. While performed with some regularity, it has not become part of the core opera repertory in the same way as Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová or The Cunning Little Vixen.
Discography
- Zdenka Hrncirova (Emilia), Beno Blachut (Gregor), Rudolf Asmus (Kolenatý), Milada Musilová (Kristina), Theodor Srubar (Jaroslav Prus), Rudolf Vonásek (Janek); Prague National Theatre Chorus and Orchestra, Jaroslav Vogel (conductor); 1959, Supraphon (LP).
- Libuse Prylova (Emilia), Ivo Zidek (Gregor), Karel Berman (Kolenatý), Rudolf Vonasek (Vítek), Helena Tattermuschová (Kristina), Premysl Kocí (Jaroslav Prus), Viktor Koci (Janek), Milan Karpisek (Hauk-Šendorf), Jiri Joran (Stage Technician), Slavka Prochazkova (Charlady), Milada Musilová (Maid); Prague National Theatre Chorus and Orchestra, Bohumil Grégor (conductor); 1966, Supraphon (LP and CD).
- Marie Collier (Emilia), Gregory Dempsey (Gregor), Eric Shilling (Kolenatý), Francis Egerton (Vítek), Barbara Walker (Kristina), Raimund Herincx (Jaroslav Prus), David Hillman (Janek), Emile Belcourt (Hauk-Šendorf), Tom McDonnell (Stage Technician), Edith Coates (Charlady), Donna Faye Carr (Maid); Sadler's Wells Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Charles Mackerras (conductor); 1971, Oriel Music Society (CD). Performed in English.
- Anja Silja (Emilia), William Lewis (Gregor), Joshua Hecht (Kolenatý), Raymond Manton (Vítek), Pamela South (Kristina), Geraint Evans (Jaroslav Prus), Neil Rosenheim (Janek), Paul Crook (Hauk-Šendorf), John Davies (Stage Technician), Gwendolyn Jones (Charlady), Shirley Lee Harned (Maid); San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi (conductor); 1976, life broadcasting and later in a Mike Richter's CD-ROM. Performed in English.
- Elisabeth Söderström (Emilia), Peter Dvorsky (Gregor), Dalibor Jedlicka (Kolenaty), Vladimir Krejcík (Vitek), Anna Czakova (Kristina), Václav Vitek (Jaroslav Prus), Zdenek Svehla (Janek), Beno Blachut (Hauk-Šendorf), Jiri Joran (Stage Technician), Ivana Mixová (Charlady), Blanka Vitkova (Maid); Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmoniker, Charles Mackerras (conductor); 1978, Decca (LP, MC and CD).
- Jessye Norman (Emilia), Graham Clark (Gregor), Donald McIntyre (Kolenatý), Ronald Naldi (Vítek), Marie Plette (Kristina), Håkan Hagegård (Jaroslav Prus), William Burden (Janek), Anthony Laciura (Hauk-Šendorf), Ara Berberian (Stage Technician), Stephanie Blythe (Charlady), Michelle DeYoung (Maid), Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, David Robertson (conductor); 1996, Oriel Music Society (CD). Performed in English.
Filmography
- Stephanie Sundine (Emilia), Graham Clark (Gregor), Robert Orth (Kolenatý), Richard Margison (Vítek), Kathleen Brett (Kristina), Cornelius Opthof (Jaroslav Prus), Benoit Boutet (Janek), Gary Rideout (Hauk-Šendorf); Berislav Klobucar (conductor), Lotfi Mansouri (stage director); Canadian Opera Company, Brian Large (television director), 1989, Pickwick Video (VHS).
- Anja Silja (Emilia), Kim Begley (Gregor), Andrew Shore (Kolenatý), Anthony Roden (Vítek), Manuela Kriscak (Kristina), Victor Braun (Jaroslav Prus), Christopher Ventris (Janek), Robert Tear (Hauk-Šendorf), Henry Waddington (Stage Technician), Menai Davies (Charlady), Susan Gorton (Maid); London Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Davis (conductor), Nikolaus Lehnhoff (stage director); Glyndebourne Festival, Brian Large (television director), 1995, Warner Music Vision (VHS and DVD).
[edit] References in Literature
The Makropulos case forms the center of a classic article by Bernard Williams, in which he argues that a person never has reason to live an immortal life.
[edit] External resources
- Plot synopsis from the UK Janáček society
- Miroslav Novak's Dissertation at the Universität Heidelberg
[edit] Sources
- John Tyrrell, Janáček's Operas, A Documentary Account, Faber and Faber, 1992, ISBN 0-571-15129-9, Ch. 8 (p. 304-325).
- Programme for English National Opera's performances of The Markropoulos Affair, May 2006.
