On February 24, the opera ensemble will premiere the opera Čert a Káča, one of the late stage works of the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, the most performed Czech composer at home and abroad, who came to Prague as a country boy and began his career as a violist in Komzák's band and later in Prozatimní theatre. An Austrian state scholarship made a fundamental contribution to the development of his creative talent, and Brahms's recommendation opened the way for him to the Berlin publishing house of F. Simrock. Dvořák taught at conservatories in Prague and New York. The center of gravity of his work is mainly in symphonic and chamber compositions. The most performed operas Jakobín, Rusalka and Čerta a Káča have become popular on our stages. Less performed are the operas Dimitrij and Armida.
The opera Čert a Káča was composed to a libretto by the teacher and writer Adolf Wenig. The premiere of the opera took place at the National Theater in Prague on 23 November 1899 under the baton of the first conductor Adolf Čech and directed by the director of the National Theater František Adolf Šubert.
The story about the clever shepherd Jirka, the cheeky village girl Káč and the deluded devil Marbuel is based on a Czech folk tale, which Bozena Němcová made into her literary collection in 1845 in Domažlick. The librettist Adolf Wenig conceived the plot in three acts according to the operatic conventions of the time (in the village pub, in hell and in the castle), and Dvořák inserted several elements typical of romantic operas into the plot (e.g. ballet - waltz in the 1st act and hell dance in the 2nd). performance, the princess's grand aria at the beginning of the 3rd performance). But the whole opera has the style of a well-composed flow of music with an emphasis on light, brisk and melodically expressive declamation with the use of typical motifs, which are varied melodically, rhythmically and instrumentally in an ingenious way. Musically – the dramatic declamation is accompanied by the dense symphonic sound of the orchestra in Dvořák in Čertov a Káče,
In the main roles, you will see and hear Ilona Kaplová and Simona Mrázová, Zdenek Kapl and Jan Morávek, Juraj Nociar and Michal Pavel Vojta, Katarín Jorda Kramolišová and Katarín Vovková, Dalibor Hrda and Petr Soós and others. The stage was designed by Martin Černý, winner of the A. Radok prize, costumes by Roman Šolc, choreography by Martin Tomsa.
Directed by Lubor Cukr (Since 1999, he has been working at the Prague State Opera as an assistant director, which gives him the opportunity to work with famous opera directors. He created a production of Mozart's opera Titus with our company.)
Conductor is Petr Šumník, a graduate of JAMU in Brno, where he was a pupil of P. Vronský, J. Pinkas and L. Mátl. From 1989 he was the conductor and then the choirmaster of the Moravian Theater in Olomouc, in 1995 he took up the post of opera director of the Silesian Theater in Opava. During his time in Opava (1995 – 2001), he was part of the production team three times, whose opera productions won various Libuška prizes at the prestigious opera festival in Prague – in 1997 G. Puccini's Bohémo, in 1999 Ilja Hurník's Oldřich and Boženka and in 2001 Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. As a conductor, he has visited most European countries and Thailand, collaborates with symphony orchestras in Brno, Ostrava, Zlín, Hradec Králové, Pardubice, etc. Since 2001, he has been the conductor of the Moravian Theater Opera in Olomouc and works as a teacher at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava.