The Makropulos Affair
Theatre Royal Glasgow 15/2/25
Scottish Opera
Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Martin Brabbins conductor
Chorus of ‘The Makropulos Affair’
Orla Boylan (soprano); Roland Wood (baritone); Ryan Capozzo (tenor); Michael Lafferty (tenor); Henry Waddington (bass-baritone); Alasdair Elliott (tenor); Mark Le Brocq (tenor); Catriona Hewitson (soprano); Edward Jowle (bass-baritone); Heather Ireson (mezzo-soprano); Lea Shaw (mezzo-soprano).
In a co-production with Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera presents the Welsh company’s 2022 production of Leoš Janáček’s intriguing surreal 1926 opera ‘The Makropulos Affair’, with three performances in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh, through the latter half of February and 1st March. The text is sung in an English translation by David Pountney, supported by English surtitles. The production is directed by Olivia Fuchs, designed by Nicola Turner and lit by Robbie Butler. A further significant creative element of the production is projected video content designed by Sam Sharples. The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, The Chorus (men’s voices) of The Makropulos Affair and a full cast of principals are conducted by Martyn Brabbins, in (amazingly) his company debut. This review covers the opening night in Glasgow on 15th.
For this reviewer, all of Janáček’s music has a compelling, vivid immediacy, with a sense that he is speaking directly to the listener. Those who know about such matters tell me that his music (and not only that for voices) is perfectly tailored to the natural speech rhythms of Czech. It is therefore not uncontroversial to present a Janáček opera in English. However, in a Scottish Opera Study Day for ‘The Makropulos Affair’ on 1st February, Head of Music Programme at Edinburgh International Festival, Nick Žekulin offered the following two insights in its defence. Firstly, David Pountney’s translation is very good in its compatibility with the internal rhythms of the music. But also, and perhaps more compellingly, so many of the crucial story-telling visual elements of the production, including facial expressions and reactions, would be missed by eyes glued to surtitles. The added luxury of attending the dress rehearsal on 13th afforded me a double opportunity to follow this excellent advice.
For the reader preferring real-time narrative revelation, a spoiler alert: the rest of this paragraph outlines the plot, set in early 20th-century Prague. Celebrated and idolised operatic diva Emilia Marty arrives at a lawyer’s office on the day of the final judgement in a century-long case of the disputed legacy of one Joseph Ferdinand Prus, displaying a puzzling affectedly nonchalant curiosity in the case, yet an equally puzzling deep knowledge of the historical facts. When it is revealed that, due to the absence of a will document to confirm a verbal bequest to a Ferdinand Gregor, the legacy has been awarded to Baron Jaroslav Prus and Albert Gregor has lost, she reveals the location of the will. It is found and it appears for a time that the judgment is reversed. However, Marty is not interested in the will but a document in Greek that should be with it. She uses her seductive power over men, young and old, to try to get her hands on the document. Finally, the Baron agrees to give it to her if she sleeps with him. Suspicions, aroused by her knowledge of supposedly hidden facts and the similarity of her handwriting to that on supposedly old documents, come to a head and she is accused of fraud and forgery. She spills the beans. She was born in 1575 on Crete as Elina Makropulos, daughter of Hieronymus, later personal physician to Rudolf II, Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor and King of vast territories including Bohemia. The king demanded an elixir of youth to prolong his life. When Hieronymus produced it, the king insisted it be tested first on his 16-year old daughter Elina. When she fell into a coma, Hieronymus was executed as a charlatan. But Elina recovered and escaped Prague with her father’s papers, including the formula for the potion. Since then she has wandered far and wide, taking on many identities, her name always preserving the initials E.M.. She has had many lovers and given birth to many children, but only found true love once, with Joseph Ferdinand Prus (‘Pepi’), when she was known as Elian MacGregor. She left the formula for the potion with him. Their illegitimate child was known as Ferdinand Gregor. Albert is his rightful heir. She is now 339 years old and needs the potion if she is to stave off rapidly encroaching signs of ageing and imminent death. But the realisation dawns on her that it is shared mortality that prompts the qualities of humanity and empathy. She is weary of ‘eternal life’ and accepts and even welcomes her death.
Irish soprano Orla Boylan, whose stunning portrayal of Marx’ long-suffering wife, the aristocratic radical, Jenny von Westphalen, in ‘Marx in London a year ago was superb, delivered again as the enigmatic Emilia Marty. A world-weary loucheness, a manipulative awareness of the infatuation she inspires in men and a willingness to exploit that to get what she wants, yet a vulnerability in the face of the rage of the humiliated men, she bears the physical and emotional scars of over 3 centuries of contradiction: multiple identities and none. Design of costumes, sets and lighting supported a compelling multi-faceted characterisation. In Act 1 in the lawyers’ office, where greys and pastels predominate, Emilia is dressed in black, at once inquisitive and secretive. In Act 2 in her opera-house dressing room, flamboyant reds predominate, with a preposterous quantity of red roses from her admirers, while her dress and hair radiate the same colour. She is in her element, in control, seductive and exploitative. Yet she is needy, and Prus extracts the promise of sex as his price for the formula of the elixir. In Act 3 in her hotel room, she is in white, but far from innocent. After what must hold the record for the shortest ever operatic coitus, and the immortal line “well, where is it?” (referring of course to the promised formula for the potion), she stands accused of fraud and forgery, if not harlotry. Her coldness and lack of empathy are evident. But, as she drunkenly tells the truth of her long story, she is transformed. In the final transfigurative scene, she is old and bald, but the white-hot music and the lighting proclaim her triumph as she embraces mortality and is free. Superbly cathartic.
The design is also rich in the visual imagery of the passage of time and the signs of ageing. Each of the three sets features a clock: a square one on the wall of the lawyers’ office, a huge surreal round yellow one (later spectral white) at the side of the dressing room, and a large ornate one ominously crowning the bedhead in the hotel room. The video elements, front of stage during the overture and back-projected at other times, often feature the inner workings of timepieces, metronomes and contrasting images of young and old eyes, hands and other physical manifestations, further enhancing an already intense artistic experience.
Baritone Roland Wood, fabulous as Marx a year ago and Gianni Schicchi the year before that, is Baron Jaroslav Prus, aristocratic claimant to the inheritance and current holder of the estate whose probate is contested. It is, perhaps, not a sympathetic role. When Emilia’s knowledge of the lost will document leads to the probable overturn of the ruling in his favour, he is suspicious and challenges her to prove that Ferdinand Gregor was the same person as the (illegitimate) heir whose birth was registered with the surname Makropulos. Yet, despite evident mutual contempt, he falls under the spell of her beauty and extracts a promise of a night together for the (to him) worthless document that she craves. He feels cheated and repulsed by her coldness and is on the brink of violence when the news of his son’s suicide is brought. Her dismissive lack of concern (especially as the boy’s frustrated infatuation with her was the cause of his suicide) is shocking to him, but his numbness at the realisation, in the final dénouement, that she has been telling the truth all along, sharpens his tragedy. This was an excellent characterisation. As with all the principals, and as a vindication of the translation and Janáček’s singer-friendly orchestration, Roland Wood’s diction was such that the surtitles were indeed mostly superfluous.
American tenor Ryan Capozzo makes his Scottish Opera debut in the role of Albert Gregor, the middle class claimant to the inheritance. The pursuit of his claim has bankrupted him; losing will mean ruin. The judgment against his claim has him on the point of suicide, when Emilia’s revelation of the location of the missing will effectively saves his life. He falls passionately under her spell and declares undying love, which she rebuffs, treating him as ‘a little boy’, enraging him. Yet he also tells her “something in you repels me”. He is affronted when she offers him money to tide him over, but reluctantly accepts at her insistence. Only at the end does he realise that she is in fact his great-great-grandmother. It is a role rich in passion and torment and Ryan Capozzo’s voice and acting delivered both in spades. Excellent.
Another Scottish Opera debut, in the role of Prus’ son Janek, is British tenor Michael Lafferty. He is spellbound and tongue-tied at Emilia’s beauty. At first she mocks and dismisses him, but then attempts to exploit his impressionability to steal the formula of the elixir for her. Before she can fully overcome his timid reluctance to go against his father, the latter arrives and sends him packing. Learning of Emilia’s assignation with his father, he commits suicide. It is not only a tragic role. Janek’s love for the young opera singer Kristina presents an interlude of innocent sweet youthful flirtatiousness in stark contrast with the sordid dealings of the older characters. Michael Lafferty’s tenor voice is warm and expressive across the range and definitely one to watch.
English bass-baritone Henry Waddington is excellent as the curmudgeonly Doctor Kolenatý, the lawyer acting for Albert Gregor in the tortuous probate case. Dramatically, he gets to portray frustration and exasperation with the legal twists and turns, plus suspicion, mistrust and incredulity at the motives and veracity of most of the other characters (not to mention a pretty jaundiced view of the whole of sordid humanity). As well as this quite humorous aspect, he is tasked with exposition of the back-story, a vital element of the plot and another vindication of the translation and the quality of the diction of the principals. His surprise at the discovery that Emilia has been telling the truth all along is the most dramatically overt.
Scottish tenor Alasdair Elliott, whose mercurial Friedrich Engels in ‘Marx in London!’ was praiseworthy a year ago, delivered again in another character role, the ageing and half-crazed Count Hauk-Šendorf , an old flame of Emilia’s when she was Eugenia Montez, a Romany lady in Spain in 1877. When he sees her, he is knocked sideways by the resemblance and reminisces (cue some subtle flamenco references from Janáček). When she tells him Eugenia is not dead and calls him by her pet-name for him (Maxi), he is enraptured. She treats him with tenderness and affection. Neither the other characters nor in truth the audience are certain whether this is genuine or mockery. In Act 3, he returns with his wife’s jewels intending to elope with ‘Eugenia’ to Spain. A doctor in a white coat arrives with a wheelchair to cart him away. A lovely bittersweet performance with an element of contrasting innocence.
In the somewhat whimsical role of Kolenatý’s clerk Vítek, British tenor Mark Le Brocq, known to Scottish audiences as Mao in ‘Nixon in China’ and Harry King in ‘Anthropocene’, is as insouciant as his boss is cantankerous. His strong voice opens the opera alone at the office, reveals strong anti-aristocratic views, yet cannot be drawn on offering a legal opinion to the anxious Albert. A level-headed normality acts as the perfect foil to the chaotic surrealism of the other characters.
Vítek’s daughter Kristina, an aspiring young opera singer, is played by Scottish soprano Catriona Hewitson, remembered as a super Gretel in ‘Hansel & Gretel’ in Paisley over a year ago and a delightful Casilda in ‘The Gondoliers’ two years previously. She is in awe of the idolised Emilia and despairs of ever being as accomplished an artist. She and Prus’ son Janek are an item, a fact not meeting with the approval of either parent. She teases him that she will have to curtail her time for flirting if she is to make it as a singer. Her world comes crashing down when Janek’s suicide prompted by Emilia’s rejection robs her of both lover and idol. She is grief-stricken. At the end of the opera, the dying transfigured Emilia offers her the formula for the potion; it will give her the time she needs to be able to ‘sing like Marty’. As the other characters and the audience look on in horror, she takes it, but sets it alight, ending the cycle of woe. An excellent performance. In a surprise wee extra, Scottish Opera have unearthed a jaunty aria originally written by Janáček for inclusion in the opera, but omitted from the final version, recorded it and cut a gramophone record. In a short entr’acte between Acts 1 and 2 (the only interval was after Act 2), while scene changing proceded behind a proscenium gauze, Kristina wheels out a gramophone and puts on ostensibly her recording, calling her father to come and listen. He is impressed and even starts to half-dance to the music. But her self-doubt kicks in and she walks away, before he wheels the gramophone away again.
Three other fine singers took minor cameo roles. English bass-baritone Edward Jowle (PC Budd in ‘Albert Herring’ in October) was the stage technician at the start of Act 2, musing with the cleaner, Scottish mezzo Heather Ireson (Annina in ‘Traviata’ in May and a super Cherubino in Opera Bohemia’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ in August 2022), about the enigmatic Marty. Lea Shaw, (a super Mercédès in ‘Carmen’, a mischievous Hansel in ‘Hansel & Gretel and a flamboyant Flora in ‘Traviata’) was Emilia’s chambermaid, chided for being too rough with the hairbrush.
In conclusion, this production represented a confluence of creative elements to realise a triumph greater than the sum of its parts. Martyn Brabbins’ shaping of Janáček’s score has nothing to fear from comparison with those of Sir Charles Mackerras and Jiří Bělohlávek, the augmented Orchestra of Scottish Opera delivering an intensity of expressive radiance that has few equals. The offstage male chorus, trained by Chorus Director Susannah Wapshott, movingly adumbrated Emilia’s final declaration. The creative team in the co-production brought the highest standards of excellence of both companies to bear in fashioning a spellbinding, electrifying realisation of Janáček’s artistic vision. Powerful and unforgettable. Highly recommended.
Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic