The Janáček Opera ensemble is preparing the world premiere of a piece written specifically for it. The Monument is a tailor-made work for the stage of the Janáček Theatre, a big orchestra, ten soloists and three choirs: the opera choir, the Czech Academic Choir and the Brno Children's Choir. The opera production is being created under the direction of David Radok, who also wrote the libretto, while the music was written by the composer and chief conductor of the Brno opera ensemble Marko Ivanović. Svatopluk Sem, Markéta Cukrová, Roman Hoza and others will appear as soloists.
The authors were inspired by the destiny of sculptor Otakar Švec (1892–1955), who, just like another fifty-four sculptors in 1949, was forced to participate in the competition to create a monument to J. V. Stalin. Švec solved the absurd and megalomaniac task by designing an unfeasible monument, which eventually won the competition. Political pressure exerted on Švec during the construction ultimately took the highest toll. Radok, however, is not trying to create a realistic story of the sculptor. His text depicts in eleven scenes the atmosphere and the absurdity of situations in which people are manipulated by an unspecified totalitarian political regime that suppresses the individual and his personality mercilessly and places him in situations where he has to cope with both moral and artistic dilemmas.
“Although The Monument is based on a real model of Stalin's monument at Letná, it is not a documentary. It is just a loose inspiration from this absurd construction, which contains all the ingredients of an ancient tragedy – the greatest monument celebrating one of the biggest dictators and murderers of history, during the construction of which the cruellest political trials are staged, and right before the monument is unveiled, the author commits suicide. I tried to untie myself from documentary factualism: the sculptor's name is Sculptor, not Švec, there are no Nejedlý or Kopecký, but 1st secretary, deputies… simply no names. I believe that opera requires a different representation of reality than drama, film or literature. It needs to intensify and extract only the quintessence of situations, relationships; but telling this story as a documentary just does not fit into the operatic form,” David Radok describes the upcoming opera production.
The premiere of The Monument is announced to take place on 7 February at 7 pm at the Janáček Theatre.
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