4/5 stars

To quote Gavin Plumley from the programme, ‘on paper, protracted legal cases are hardly the stuff of great drama.’ Indeed, Janacek’s decision to adapt Capeks 1922 play The Makropulos Case into an opera does seem a little odd. It’s set in a solicitor’s office and centres on a century long legal battle for land inheritance between Gregor vs. Prus. It’s quite obviously not the stuff of traditional opera.

Yet the legal jargon simply serves as a platform for Janacek to highlight the nuisances of modern life. The first act opens in the office of Gregors lawyer, Kolenatý’. The staccato music and monotone male voices of the male clerks encapsulate the monotonous style of the legal profession and also of modern life. This is a play all about modernity and ‘modern’ themes; greed, wealth, obsession with beauty and youth and deception. The characters, and in turn the audience, are waiting on the final decision from the court when Kolenatý’s doe-eyes daughter waltzes in, brimming with praise for Emilia Marty a famous Opera singer. After the devastating blow that they lost the case, Emilia Marty enters the office and leaks information that would help Gregor win the case but Gregor is not alone in asking how on earth she could know this. The next act follows in a similar vein, as advances are attempted to win the case and men continue to fall at Emilia Marty’s feet. A personal obsession to own some documents connected with the case is exposed and she is willing to sleep with Prus to get them. Characters and audience both start to ask the same question; isn’t there something odd about Emilia Marty?

Although Ylva Kihlberg as the main female part was impressive vocally, at times the play was a little tedious and her lack of physical movement meant the play often lack visual appeal. This was a problem that plagued the whole production. Actors were often very static and the backdrops didn’t help. The sets were strikingly designed, making it obvious that the setting had been changed from the decade of the operas creation, the 20’s, to the 50’s. The primary problem is how exciting can the office in act 1 and the backstage opera scene in act 2 be?

Everything in this opera culminates to the final act, as it reaches its dramatic conclusion. For me the ending revelation was the highlight of the whole production; it was stranger than any the possibilities I thought of during the interval,. The climactic scene contained all the vigour and action that had been missing from the rest of the play. As Emilia drifts away from reality so do we and the crescendo of the orchestra, the call of the trumpets and the sudden stops in time make for one of the best dramatic scenes I’ve witnessed in a long time.

Georgina Norton