The Makropulos affair
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| Title: | The Makropulos affair |
| Original title: | Věc Makropulos |
| Original language: | Czech |
| Music: | Leoš Janáček |
| Libretto : | Leoš Janáček |
| Literary source: | Karel Čapek |
| Premiere: | December 18, 1926 |
| Place of premiere: | Brno , National Theater |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Prague 1922 |
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The Makropulos Case ( Věc Makropulos ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček . The libretto is in Czech and is based on a comedy by Karel Čapek . The opera premiered on December 18, 1926 at the National Theater in Brno .
action
prehistory
A few years before his death, Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) ordered a drink from his personal physician Hieronymos Makropulos that was supposed to extend life by 300 years. Makropulos is supposed to try the remedy on his daughter Elina, but Elina falls into a coma and the personal doctor goes to prison.
Elina does not die, however, but gets well again, since then has lived without aging under different names, but always with the same initials: EM
first act
Kolenatý Law Office. The inheritance dispute between the Prus and Gregor families, which has been simmering for almost a hundred years, is being tried again in court. At the law firm, Albert asked Gregor how the process was going. His lawyer comes in, accompanied by the opera singer Emilia Marty, who is interested in the trial and can also contribute details that were previously unknown. She describes Gregor as the descendants of the then deceased Baron Prus and the singer Ellian MacGregor and gives precise information on the whereabouts of the will. The lawyer is instructed to investigate the evidence. In the meantime, Gregor approaches the woman, but is turned back. Instead, Emilia Marty asks him for a specific Greek handwriting.
The lawyer returns with the will and other papers he has found, accompanied by Jaroslav Prus, who is opposing the litigation, but who does not want to hand over the documents until it has been proven that Gregor is the heir.
Second act
Stage of the theater after the performance. A cleaning lady and a stage worker chat about Marty's private life. The young singer Krista believes she is faced with the decision to have to choose between Janek Prus and art. Emilia Marty rejects the gifts and compliments of her admirers, insults Janek and Krista. An old man, Hauk-Schendorf, thinks he recognizes a singer in Marty, Eugenia Montez, with whom he had a relationship fifty years ago - Emilia reveals herself to him through tenderness, then sends everyone away except Jaroslav Prus.
While examining the documents, he found love letters signed with EM; he believes that it was not Ellian McGregor a hundred years ago that the mother of the heir in question was the mother of the heir in question, but Elina Makropulos, which in turn means that Gregor is not entitled to the property, but at most the Makropulos family.
Emilia Marty gets Janek Prus to try to steal the documents, but he fails because his father overheard the conversation. Emilia then offers him a night together, for which she wants the documents. Jaroslav Prus accepts.
Third act
A hotel room the next morning. Prus gives the singer the Greek handwriting. The news arrives that his son killed himself. Hauk-Schendorf comes to Spain to take Emilia Marty to Spain as his former lover.
Prus, Gregor, the lawyer and his head of the law firm step in and question Emilia Marty. She reveals both her identities and the meaning of the handwriting, which would enable her to live another 300 years. But now that the way is open to her, she no longer wants. She passes the handwriting on to Krista, who burns it. Elina Makropulos collapses.
Origin and performance history
The composer Janáček saw the piece for the first time on December 10, 1922 at the Divadlo na Vinohradech (Theater in the Vineyards) in Prague and decided to use the material for an opera. Legal problems delayed the start of the work. Janáček began composing his eighth opera on November 11, 1923. He also wrote the text himself and transformed the original piece, a comedy, into a detective piece. The opera was completed on December 3, 1925.
The figure of Elina Makropulos was inspired by Kamila Stösslová, Janáček's unrequited love.
Two years after its premiere, the opera was performed for the first time in Prague and in 1929 in Germany. It was only shown for the first time in the USA in 1966 at the San Francisco Opera .
Web links
Individual evidence
Beginning of a novel (1894) | Jenůfa (1904) | Mr Brouček's excursions (1920) | Káťa Kabanová (1921) | The cunning little fox (1924) | Šárka (1925) | The Makropulos Case (1926) | From a house of the dead (1930, posthumous) | Osud (1958, posthumous)