For the sixth time, the Music Marathon has stirred up the streets, squares, and many spaces in Brno with all sorts of musical genres. These are not necessarily just concert venues, however. The Hausopera ensemble, for example, took their opera The Eternal Miss Pale to the Zeman Café on Friday 12 August. In three weekend performances there, they will complete their “Trilogy for the City”, a custom-made project for Brno that recalls its pros, cons, and above all some of its functionalist buildings.
As part of this site-specific Trilogy, the Hausopera ensemble has already presented the opera Water Polo at the Spa on Rašínovo (2018) and the opera The Raspberry Game (2021) at Michal Ženíšek’s bookshop in the Alfa arcade. The opera The Eternal Miss Pale or Operatic Uncertainty for the Masses opened its world of fantasy and “sweet intoxication” for the first time in September last year (together with The Raspberry Game) and, after reprisals in Ostrava and Prague, it has now returned to the Zeman Café as part of the festival.
Josef Škarka, the author of the libretto as well as the whole project, and the main performer of the evening, plays out a kind of absurd drama within the opera, strikingly reminiscent of Waiting for Godot and also waiting for unanswered banal questions on the border of dream and reality, artfully hidden behind cakes and sweet pastries. Jiří Nekvasil’s direction made impressive and imaginative use of the entire café space, so that almost all the audience was in the center of the action (even though the café’s layout obviously had some limitations in terms of visibility). Composers Markéta Dvořáková and Ivo Medek managed to translate the mystery, uncertainty, and the period of the First Republic perfectly into the music, which oscillates between modern dissonance, colorful vocal and percussive effects, and swing hits of the 1930s associated with the café interior.
The main singing roles were played by the aforementioned Josef Škarka and Aneta Podracká Bendová. Josef Škarka’s business traveller Bartoš was a colorful display of intense emotions, and his distinctive, colorful voice managed to easily set the whole space ringing. Aneta Podracká Bendová, in the diametrically different role of Miss Bledá, apart from the cute piece of cake on her head, made an impression mainly by her sonorous and soft voice which she managed to use to the maximum despite the apparent stereotype and thoughtfulness of a character living somewhere far away in her own world. The pair of soloists was complemented by the character of the Eternal Customer, in whose role Marek Olbrzymek had the unique opportunity to eat a giant piece of cake throughout the production and to wittily end the performance with two sentences. The indispensable role of narrators was played by six young girls in waitress costumes from the Opera Studio of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, entering the plot with their balanced and cleanly matched double voices and acting. In contrast to last year’s production, they replaced a pair of child soloists, but it was a pity that the cast did not remain more Brno-based. The unusual but colorful instrumentation consisted of a quartet consisting of flute (Jana Ščarbakowa), accordion (Ondřej Zámečník), cello (Lukáš Svoboda) and very imaginative percussion (Kristýna Švihálková). Everything took place under the direction of Michal Jančík, who coordinated all the performers with his clear gestures and had the entire musical event fully under control.
The creation of new site-specific works using common spaces within which we move around every day is certainly a meaningful activity that enriches cultural life in the proper direction. It succeeds in bridging the gap between culture and the mundaneness of everyday life. In the field of Brno’s culture, then, the credit in this direction belongs to the Hausopera ensemble which is not afraid to experiment and constantly surprise the audience with new ideas. The Trilogy for the City was thus concluded by this First Republic drama with elements of absurdity and tragicomic references to contemporary Brno, and we can look forward to other creative projects by this group.
The Eternal Miss Pale
or Operatic Uncertainty for the Masses
music by Markéta Dvořáková & Ivo Medek
libretto by Josef Škarka
directed by Jiří Nekvasil
conductor and musical direction Michal Jančík
choirmaster Lenka Živocká
set design by Tomáš Rusín
lighting design by Barbora Jágrová & Jiří Kubalec
costumes by Zuzana Rusínová
production by Lucie Kořínková & Jakub Václavek
assistant director Jakub Václavek
PR and Campaign Manager Jitka Miková
Miss Pale: Aneta Podracká Bendová
Mr. Bartoš: Josef Škarka
Narrators: NDM Opera Studio
Flute: Jan Szczarbakow
Percussion: Kristýna Švihálková
Accordion: Ondřej Zámečník
Cello: Lukáš Svoboda
The Zeman Confectionery and Café (Zemanova cukrárna)
Friday 12 August 2022
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