Metropolitan Opera Premiere Of Janacek's Powerful "From The House Of The Dead" On November 12
The Metropolitan Opera's next new production of the season may very well be much better-received than its controversial new Tosca , which opened the season in September . This will be its first performance of the final opera of the great Czech composer Leos Janacek , who was a close contemporary of Puccini .
"From the House of the Dead " is a grim but profoundly moving opera about life in a Siberian prison camp , and is based on a novel by Dostoyevsky . It was premered in Prague posthumously , shortly after the composer's death in 1928 at the age of 74 , and does not even have a conventional plot as such . It simply shows the grim daily existence of the prisoners , with the brutality of the guards and the commandant , the petty squabbles of the prisoners , and their hatreds and jealousies .
Janacek's music is often harshly dissonant and angular , but also quite lyrical at times . The vocal writing is completely different from the smooth and sensuously beautiful lines of Puccini ; it is highly declamatory and follows the inflections of everyday speech .
In the first act , Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov arrives at the prison camp . Unlike most of the other inmates , who are there for murder and other crimes , he is well-educated and political prisoner . When the commandant hears that he is a political prisoner , he has the guards beat him half to death . The prisoners are keeping an eagle with a broken wing which to them is a symbol of captivity .
Throughout the opera , several of the prisoners have monologues in which they describe the mrders which landed them in prison , and Gorianchikov befriends Aleya , a young Tatar prisoner from Dagestan (near Chechnya) in the Caucasus , and teaches him to read and write .
At the end of the opera , Gorianchikov is freed because of the Tsar's clemency , and the drunken commandant apologizes to him and his chains are removed . The eagle's wing has healed , and both are now free , as the prisoners cry "Freedom ". But the guards force them back to work , as prison routine continues .
This production was first seen in several European countries two years ago and the French opera director Patrice Chereau makes his Metropolitan debut . Also making his Met debut is the distinguished Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, who recently stepped down as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic .
The radio broadcast will not be until March 20 next year , and unfortunately the opera is not part of the HD movie broadcasts . But you can easily get the DVD of this production from Europe conducted by Pierre Boulez at arkivmusic.com . From the House of the Dead is hardly a typical or conventional opera like those of Verdi , Puccini, Rossini and Bizet etc , but it's an unforgettable experience . You can also get the superb Decca recording conducted by the great Australian conductor and Janacek expert Sir Charls Mackerras .