Janacek: The Operas / Mackerras, Vienna Philharmonic

Janacek: The Operas / Mackerras, Philharmonic - Decca - DEC B000723702 - 028947568

Label: Decca
Catalog No: DEC B000723702
Format: CD
Release Date: 2006-09-12
Number of Discs: 9
Running time: 9 hr. 33 min.
UPC Code: 028947568728

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Notes & Reviews:

BBC Music Magazine
Charles Mackerras's partnership with soprano Söderström produced definitive and superbly recorded studio performances of Kát'a Kabanová, Jenufa and The Makropulos Case. A must for Janácek fans.

Gramophone Classical Music Guide
From the House of the Dead (the 1980 Gramophone Record of the Year) was here recorded for the first time in its proper, original version; and this revealed it as even more of a masterpiece - a work, indeed, to count among the handful of masterpieces of 20th-century opera. The loss of the final chorus, a sentimental addition, is but the most striking of the clarifications: throughout, the sound is sharper, the textures are sparer, and this serves to sharpen the effect and to give the singers more clearly differentiated support. The cast is led, nominally, by Goryanchikov, but the character isn't really the hero of an opera that has no heroes, and in which all are heroes, though Dalibor Jedlicka sings him warmly and well.

The prisoners are skilfully contrasted in Janácek's writing so as to make an apparently random yet actually well-structured group; there isn't a weak performance among them. The Makropulos Affair does have a heroine, in the tragic figure of Emilia Marty; and here Elisabeth Söderström gives one of her greatest recorded performances. She succeeds amazingly in conveying the complexity of the character, the elegance yet flinty cynicism, the aloofness yet vulnerability, the latent warmth that can flower into such rich expressive phrases and then be reined in with a sense of nervy panic. She's only really alarmed by Prus, the most formidable of the men around her, powerfully sung by Václav Zítek. Mackerras is again masterly. This is a recording to set among great performances of it.

As with From the House of the Dead, there's an essay by John Tyrrell that not only gives the listener the best possible introduction to the opera but is also a contribution to scholarship.

The fillups Mládi and the Nursery rhyme, come from David Atherton's splendid 1981 set of five LPs devoted to Janácek; the Lachian Dances set is a rather less successful companion to Makropulos.

Gramophone Magazine
Sir Charles... has done Janácek proud over the years with these recordings, for which one can only return affectionate thanks and congratulations.



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Works Details

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Jenufa
  • Performers: Jindra Pokorna (Soprano); Eva Randova (Voice); Marie Mrazova (Voice); Ivana Mixova (Voice); Vaclav Zitek (Voice); Vera Soukupova (Voice); Dalibor Jedlicka (Bass); Lucia Popp (Soprano); Peter Dvorsky (Tenor); Wieslaw Ochman (Tenor); Jana Jonasova (Voice); Elisabeth Söderström (Soprano)
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna State Opera Chorus
  • Running Time: 1 min. 50 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Opera/Operetta
  • Written: 1894-1903

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Jealousy
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Running Time: 5 min. 37 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Orchestral
  • Written: 1894

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Príhody Lisky Bystrousky (The Cunning Little Vixen)
  • Performers: Lucia Popp (Soprano); Beno Blachut (Voice); Dalibor Jedlicka (Bass); Gertrude Jahn (Alto); Richard Novak (Voice); Miriam Ondráskov (Voice); Vladimir Krejcik (Tenor); Libuse Marova (Voice); Zuzana Hudecov (Voice); Eva Hríbikov (Voice); Eva Randova (Voice); Vaclav Zitek (Voice); Ivana Mixova (Voice); Eva Zigmundov (Voice); Peter Saray (Boy Soprano)
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Running Time: 3 min. 18 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Opera/Operetta

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : The Cunning Little Vixen
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Running Time: 19 min. 8 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : From the House of the Dead- Suite
  • Performers: Zdenek Sousek (Tenor); Ivo Zidek (Tenor); Jaroslava Janska (Soprano); Vladimir Krejcik (Tenor); Vaclav Zitek (Voice); Eva Zigmundov (Voice); Jiri Zahradnicek (Voice); Zdenek Svehla (Tenor); Antonin Svorc (Voice); Jaroslav Soucek (Baritone); Beno Blachut (Voice); Dalibor Jedlicka (Bass); Richard Novak (Voice)
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna State Opera Chorus
  • Running Time: 5 min. 31 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Opera/Operetta

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : The Makropulos Case (Vec Makropulos), opera, JW 1/10
  • Performers: Elisabeth Söderström (Soprano); Ivana Mixova (Voice); Blanka Vitkova (Voice); Vaclav Zitek (Voice); Anna Czakov (Voice); Jiri Joran (Bass); Peter Dvorsky (Tenor); Vladimir Krejcik (Tenor); Dalibor Jedlicka (Bass); Beno Blachut (Voice); Zdenek Svehla (Tenor)
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna State Opera Chorus
  • Running Time: 5 min. 29 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Opera/Operetta

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Káta Kabanová, opera, JW 1/8
  • Performers: Hedwig Drechsler (Voice); Vladimir Krejcik (Tenor); Peter Dvorsky (Tenor); Libuse Marova (Voice); Jitka Pavlova (Voice); Elisabeth Söderström (Soprano); Zdenek Svehla (Tenor); Jaroslav Soucek (Baritone); Nadezda Kniplova (Soprano); Gertrude Jahn (Alto); Dalibor Jedlicka (Bass); Adolf Tomaschek (Baritone)
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Notes: Composition written: ?01/09/1920-04/17/1921.
  • Running Time: 6 min. 20 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Opera/Operetta

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Sinfonietta
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Running Time: 24 min. 22 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Orchestral
  • Written: 1926

>Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928) : Taras Bulba
  • Conductor: Charles Mackerras
  • Ensemble: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Running Time: 23 min. 32 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Written: 1915-1918