Leos Janáček in Brno
The series about historical places of opera art & culture. Get to know exciting excursion and travel ideas for opera lovers. This time: Leos Janáček in Brno.
All Destinations on google maps with links to detailed Blogposts:
Leos Janáček in Brno
Janáček came to the Moravian city of Brno as a teenager. After briefly studying music in Prague, he settled in Brno. He married a former piano student and became the director of a music school.
He composed alongside his profession; he began his first masterpiece, the opera “Jenufa,” in 1894, but did not finish it until 1904, when it was premiered at the National Theater in Brno. It remained largely unnoticed, however; only a 1916 version made the work known (along with an essay by Max Brod in Germany), and the now 62-year-old received wider attention for the first time. All the remaining masterpieces (Tara Bulba, Sinfonietta, The Cunning Little Vixen, Katya Kabanova, etc.) were written in the last decade of his life.
In 1917 he met the 26-year-old Kamila Stösslova, who became his (platonic) muse, which put a strain on his marriage. With the Sinfonietta (originally a one-movement commissioned work), he wrote a monument to the city of Brno with the movement titles “Fanfares, Castle, The Queen’s Monastery, Street and City Hall,” which he later retracted. Ironically, the Sinfonietta was the only one of Janacek’s larger works not to be premiered in Brno. Janáček died in 1928 in a hospital in Ostrava.
Destination Janáček walk
A website (currently only available in Czech and German) is available on the Internet with a path through Brno in the footsteps of Janacek:
https://www.leosjanacek.eu/de/pfad/
Historic Brno:
Destination Janáček memorial place
His house (from 1910) and the attached music school form the memorial of the Moravian composer. The house is in original condition, the study and his piano where he wrote his most important works after 1910 are part of the tour.
Janacek’s study:
http://en.postopachmoderny.cz/leos-janacek-memorial-house/
Destination Mahen Theater (former Nationaltheater)
This beautiful theater, opened in 1878, was the scene of the first performances of Janacek’s operas and was then called the National Theater. The interior of the theater and the marble staircase are especially beautiful.
The theater became the first fully electrically lit theater on the European continent. An Edison light bulb from 1882 was therefore placed in a decorative copper case set into the last stone. (Today it is displayed in a glass case next to the main staircase). Edison himself visited Brno in 1911. (Source: Theater website).
The theater offers a high quality opera program.
Theater Mahen:
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!