Osud
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Osud / fate |
| Original title: | Osud |
| Original language: | Czech |
| Music: | Leoš Janáček |
| Libretto : | Leoš Janáček |
| Premiere: | October 25, 1958 |
| Place of premiere: | Brno |
| Playing time: | about 80 minutes |
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Osud is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček , based on a self-written libretto supported by Fedora Bartošová . Janáček began work in 1903 and finished it in 1907. The work was not premiered until 30 years after his death, on October 25, 1958 in Brno as part of the Janáček Festival on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death. The German premiere was on October 26, 1958 in Stuttgart.
Emergence
After the death of his 20-year-old daughter Olga in the summer of 1903, Janáček went to the Moravian seaside resort of Luhačovice to recharge his batteries. There he met Kamila Urválková , who, when she found out that Janáček was a composer, tried very hard to get in touch with him. There she complained to him that she once had a very close love affair with the composer Ludvík Čelanský . But since a composer has an irregular income, she urged her mother to marry a forester. As a good bourgeois daughter of the “Fin de Siecle” she obeyed, and as a thank you Čelanský wrote his opera “Kamila”, in which she felt that she was misrepresented. She also convinced Janáček to write an opera about her that would better portray her. Janáček immortalized her in his opera Osud in the character of Mila. But since she quickly stopped correspondence with Janáček after her husband's pressure, Janáček had her disappear in the second act. Janáček portrays himself in the figure of the composer Zivny. After the unsuccessful premiere of his Jenufa in Brno in January 1904, he found himself in a life crisis that Janáček transferred to Zivny. Just as Janáček revised his first version of Jenufa, Zivny is also writing his work, which can finally be performed in the third act. The opera is finished, except for the last act. And as unfinished as this work is, he ultimately wants to bring it to the stage as a fragment. “The last act is in God's hands and will stay there,” Osud finally ends. As early as 1907, Brno showed interest in performing the work. Since Janáček had hoped to have the work performed in Prague, he neglected the Brno plans. But the Prague performance did not take place because it was considered too complex and impossible to perform. So the work disappeared into the drawer during Janáček's lifetime. It was not until 1934 that the music was performed posthumously on Brno Radio.
action
Act 1
In Bad Luhačovice, Moravia The spa guests welcome the new morning. The Dr. Suda, Lhotsky and Konecny court a newly arrived elegant young lady. But she soon forgets the red roses she received when she discovers the composer Zivny among the spa guests. The three gentlemen withdraw. Mila cleverly manages to meet Zivny "by chance", with whom she had a relationship that met with the mother's displeasure because the Bohemian could not look after a good middle-class daughter. However, this liaison was not without consequences. She secretly gave birth to a son he and her mother know nothing about. At the meeting, the old feelings come back on both sides and they withdraw. The teacher Fräulein Stuhla tries to rehearse a song for some students with other teachers, which leads to great amusement among the students. Dr. Suda comes and takes the students and other noisy spa guests on an excursion. Mila's mother follows them, hoping to find her daughter. Mila and Zivny went on a trip together. They wallow in memories, and Mila finally reveals that they have a son. Finally it was evening. The excursion guests have returned. Mila tries to evade the curious looks of the guests. Zivny, on the other hand, asks her to publicly acknowledge him, his love and her child. She does and they both go away. Mila's mother is still looking for her daughter. She learns from the guests that Mila has gone away with Zivny, "with her misfortune," as she blurts out.
Act 2
Four years later - in a small apartment. Mila and Zyvny got married. In addition to their son Doubek, their mother also lives with them, who had always been against marriage and because of the daughter's deed became insane. But the composer lost his creativity. He does not want to succeed in the last act of his opera. In this last act, the main female character, who was created after Mila's example, is to be rehabilitated. Due to their forced separation and the rumor that Mila had gotten into another man, Zivny had portrayed Mila as a whore in the first act. He destroyed some scenes from this score. Then Doubek rushes into the room and asks his mother: "Mom, do you know what love is?" Mila's mother appears with a box with her valuables. She throws Zivny at the head that he has taken her daughter, but the inheritance sneak does not get her property. Then she steps on the balcony and throws herself off him. Mila, who still wants to hold her back, falls down with her. Zivny and Doubek are shocked and stand motionless for a long time.
Act 3
Another eleven years later - theater. Zivny's opera is to be premiered in the evening. Under the direction of Zivny's assistant Verva, students have rehearsed parts of the opera. When the score breaks off after a thunderstorm scene, the students are amazed. Souckova instigates her fellow students to develop a thunderstorm themselves amid great noise. Verva reveals to the students: "The opera is finished - without the last act, this remains in God's hands". Verva also claims to have found out that the composer Lensky in the play is actually Zivny himself. He quotes a delightful children's scene from this opera: “Mommy - do you know what love is?” Doubek, who is among the students, breaks weeping together at this memory. Zivny comes in. The student Kosinska asked the composer to provide information about the main character of the opera. Zivny begins a strange lecture. He does not manage to plausibly portray and maintain the separation of fiction and past. More and more memories and also feelings of guilt catch up with him until he finally sees Mila again and collapses. He hums the scraps of a melody - "maybe the music from the last act", Verva suspects. But he is reprimanded by Zivny: “From the last act ?! - It is in God's hands and will stay there. "
music
Janáček uses waltz sounds, Moravian folk tunes, choir scenes and chamber music sounds in this work. The conductor Sylvain Cambreling describes the first act as "operetta style a la Janáček". Characteristic of Janáček is the recitative spoken chant, which dominates the opera with partial arioso passages. The music and the rhythmic chanting with the Czech idiom is strongly reminiscent of his opera Jenufa , which was composed before Osud and was revised after its completion. However, at the climax of the arioso passages, there is often an abrupt break in the melody sequence and the composition falls into chamber music instead of the expected "escalating verism". This partly makes the work appear like a fragment.
swell
- Program booklet “The happy hand” / “Destiny” of the Stuttgart Opera (2012).
- English Wikipedia contribution by Osud
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)