Janacek Mania Continues Unabated: E-P Salonen Does "The House of the Dead"

[Polarius T]

If you're in the 'hood, EPS is busy following in the footsteps of Abbado, who not long ago revived his earlier production of it, and Boulez, whose version was just issued on DVD, by staging Janacek's "From the House of the Dead" during the Helsinki Festival in Finland on August 21. This will be a concert performance, however, with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and a bunch of very fine singers including Esa Ruuttunen and Gabriel Suovanen in the first place.

More info at http://www.helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi/index.php?option=com_grokevents&task=show_event&catid=4&id=7&Itemid=7.

It seems the opera is finally getting the imprimatur it has always deserved. Now if only one of those three would have an audio recording issued, too. (I recall that one of the more recent Abbado performances may have been recorded by DG but am not sure.)

-PT

[barry guerrero]

hey Polarius,

To mimic you just a tad, what's wrong with the MacKerras recording of it? 

Also, I believe that there's a Supraphon recording that's still in print, but maybe not. Either way, it's a great piece.

[Dave H]

Mackerras is the "gold standard" in this piece, not just because of his unflinchingly exciting conducting, but also because of his carefully edited version of the score which gets as close as possible to Janacek's original, and very effectively fills in those few spots that Janacek didn't quite complete before he died (the laughing chorus in Act 2, for example). The Supraphon recording is also very good, particularly for the cast (Novak, Pribyl, Horacek, Blachut, Zidek, Berman), and of course the Czech Phil under Neumann. It is still available.

There's also a live concert version featuring Kubelik/NYPO which I had hoped would be issued on the orchestra's own label, but it wasn't to be. Listeners interested in hearing the corrupt, "triumphant" ending should sample the suite (two or three versions available) which features the closing march earlier on and turns the final "freedom" chorus into a radiant apotheosis quite contrary to Janacek's intentions--but as a concert piece it's rather nice. There is also, IIRC, an earlier recording using the old, pre-Kubelik/Mackerras score that I heard years ago, possibly when I was working in the Supraphon archives in Prague.

Dave H

[Polarius T]

To mimic you just a tad, what's wrong with the MacKerras recording of it? 

That was a pioneering effort that moreover will be thirty years old in a moment, so it would be quite interesting to see/hear a more contemporary version of it done by some more forward-looking musician like one of those three above. The way we hear and play music has probably changed (the way we record it certainly has) in the meantime and I'm curious of how all that might play out. Classics validate themselves for successive generations freshly and anew each time and can hardly be exhausted as to their meaning; and this work, for one, is a classic, which means we may doubt there is something like one single or definitive measure for it.

You've seen the Boulez already, here's another one we have on tape:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bhRr5kgv10

Classic Mortier Salzburg... (Is he still taking over the City Opera in NYC by the way? What a coup! They used to be such an interesting institution under Christopher Keene [R.I.P.], premiering and revitalizing many U.S. productions of major current-century works such as, precisely, "The House of the Dead," the "Vixen" (with MTT and Maurice Sendak...), Schoenberg's "Moses and Aron," Busoni's "Doctor Faust" -- amazing things no one else dared. High time to get out of that oblivion!)

Edward Rothstein liked the above, too:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7D7103EF932A3575BC0A964958260

-PT