Leoš Janáček

The most frequently performed Czech opera composer in the world.

Although in terms of age Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) is more part of Antonín Dvořák’s generation, his music is some of the most progressive to be found in the 20th cen tury, placing this composer among musicians two generations his junior. Janáček’s life and work are closely connected with Brno, where he lived from childhood and where his tireless work as a composer and organiser contributed greatly to the de velopment of Brno’s cultural life.

Moravian museum in cooperation with TIC BRNO

Curators: Jiří Zahrádka, Šárka Zahrádková

Design: Barbara Zemčík

Photos provided by:

© Leoš Janáček Archive, Moravian Museum

© TIC BRNO

© National Theatre Brno

© Janáček Brno Festival

© Brno Philharmonic

© Brno City Archive

Leoš Janáček Youth and Studies

School in Hukvaldy - birth house of Leoš Janáček. » Birth certificate of Leoš Janáček. »» Classroom of the foundation at the Augustinian Abbey in Brno. »»»

Leoš Janáček was born on 3 July 1854 in Hukvaldy, the ninth of fourteen children, to the family of Hukvaldy teacher Jiří Janáček. He was an average pupil at school, but showed uncommon musical ability. His father’s worsening health and a short age of money led the parents to seek an education for their son using a scholarship for musically gifted boys from poor families in Kroměříž or in Brno. Janáček’s fa ther became friends with the composer and director of the Brno foundation, Pavel Křížkovský, so they opted for the Augustinian Monastery in Old Brno. The elevenyear-old Leoš left for Brno in August 1865, bringing his childhood to a sudden end.

I had been accepted as a chorister in both Brno and Kroměříž and Father selected Brno. I had a fearful night with my mother in a kind of dark chamber – this was on Kapucínské náměstí. Me with my eyes wide open. At first daylight, quick, out! Mother left me with a heavy heart at the Klášterní náměstí. I had tears in my eyes, so did she. Strange people, unkind, a strange school, a hard bed, even harder bread. No caresses.

My world was built exclusively by myself. Everything fell into it. My father died, the ill-considered cruelty.

A View of the Life and Works (1924)

The boys from the Staré Brno foundation, who were nicknamed the bluebirds, were given a thorough musical education linked to singing at the masses at the basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, music at the monastery, as well as concerts and theatre performances in Brno. Almost fifty years later, Janáček re called his life in the monastery in his composition March of the Bluebirds from the woodwind sextet Youth

The Augustinian Monastery not only gave Janáček a good musical background, but it also equipped him with a thorough all-round education. He attended the German grammar school in Staré Brno from 1866 to 1869, and the Slavonic Teacher

Training Institute from 1869 to 1872. Just as Janáček’s father had wished for his son, the way was now clear to becoming a teacher. However, in the same year that he finished his studies, the director of the Staré Brno choir, Pavel Křížkovský, left for Olomouc and Janáček was asked to take his place in his absence. He be gan to compose at this time and decided to broaden his musical education at the Prague Organ school. He slowly moved away from his predetermined career as a teacher.

The entrance exam at the boarding school in Prague – in the Organ School. Profesor Blažek: “How is a dominant set out – a seventh chord?!“ Silence.

“A seventh steps down, a third goes up, a fifth rises, the tonic falls. He doesn’t even know that.”

In my head went:

And the seventh did not step down, the fifth didn’t rise and the tonic didn’t fall! From that time I began to think about the mystery of combining chords.

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

After returning to Brno he taught at the Teachers’ Institute, dedicated himself to the organisation of Brno’s concert life, composed, conducted and led the choir of the Philharmonic Society of the Brno Beseda (1876–1888), performing works which in cluded Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and Dvořák’s Stabat mater.

Leoš Janáček in 1874.

Leoš Janáček in 1882.

Pavel Křížkovský, Janáček’s teacher.

Augustinian Abbey and Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on today’s Mendel Square. In the fore ground on the left is the house in which Janáček later lived with his family.

Leoš Janáček

Family Life and Difficult Creative Beginnings

At the end of the 1870s, Janáček started giving piano lessons to the daughter of his boss, Emilian Schulz, the director of the Teachers’ Institute. A relationship quickly developed between the 25-year-old Janáček and the young Zdenka. In 1879 Janáček left Brno for the Leipzig and then the Vienna Conservatory, how ever he did not forget about his Zdenka. He wrote to her often, sometimes sev eral letters a day, describing his student life thoroughly, but he also confessed his innermost feelings.

“My dear, kind Zdenka, I can only see happiness in the future if I strive to prepare the most beautiful future for you, please keep this belief strong within you...”

A letter to Zdenka Schulzová (13. 10.1879)

Not long after his return, Janáček married the merely 16-year-old Zdenka Schulzová in 1881, but the beautiful future which he had promised did not tran spire. The first serious crisis came shortly after the wedding, which was not smoothed over until a year later with the birth of their daughter, Olga. At this time, Janáček was incredibly overloaded with work. In addition to all of his previ ous duties he now held the position of director and teacher at the Organ School, which he established in 1881.

The idea behind the Brno Organ school is mine and one which I’ve been fully committed to since I was capable of independent thought. I travelled to my studies in Prague with this idea and I see its realization as one of my greatest tasks.

A letter to Zdenka Schulzová (29. 11.1879)

From 1887 to 1888 Janáček wrote his first opera, Šárka , to a libretto by Julius Zeyer. However, due to his anti-Smetana position, he was disliked in Prague and Zeyer refused to give him permission to use his text. Therefore, he had to set aside his work on this opera and he did not return to it until 1925. Even though it was his first attempt at an opera, the composer still thought highly of it some thirty years later.

My Šárka? Everything within it is so similar to my last work!

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

After this failure and the dramatic rupture with the Brno Beseda, he plunged himself into the study of folk music in 1888. Janáček’s interest in folk culture can be seen through A Bouquet of Moravian Folksongs , which was published in 1890, and it was also apparent in the compositions he wrote at the time, such as Lachian Dances , Folk Dances in Moravia , The Little Queens and the ballet Rákóš Rákoczy . Janáček also wrote his second opera The Beginning of a Romance , which he himself conducted in 1894 at Brno National Theatre. Janáček later re membered this minor work, the text of which was naive, as an “empty comedy”.

At this time there was also a tragedy within the Janáček family, when in 1890 their two-year-old son, Vladimír, died suddenly. The Janáček couple became even more estranged.

Beside each other, shared unhappiness, shared pain, and then each of us so alone…

Memoirs: Zdenka Janáčková - My Life

Founding document of the Organ school in Brno.

Tableau of those performing in Janáček’s opera The Beginning of a Romance.

Janáček with members of the Working Committee for Czech Folksong in Moravia and Silesia studying a folk performance in Strání.

Leoš Janáček

Searching for a New Compositional Approach

Speech melody: On Česká street 24. 7. 1928 Leoš Janáček noted: "I haven't got it bad!" said a 16-year-old well-dressed girl with a sardonic smile. She was walking with a lady and a small girl. »

Speech melody: On a train to Prague 27 October 1925 Janáček noted: A waiter from the dining car peeked into the 2nd class car and said: “Goog morning! The coffe is being served in the dining car!” »»

Olga Janáčková in 1902. »

Leoš Janáček in the year of the premiere of the opera Jenůfa (1904) »»

In 1894 he decided to write an opera based on a work of prose – the first com poser to do so. He chose Gabriela Preissová’s realist play Její pastorkyňa (Her stepdaughter). He worked on it for nearly ten years, employing a completely new compositional approach, which with its innovation and uniqueness transformed this provincial composer into one of the world’s leading composers. We do not have an unambiguous answer to the oft-answered question of what inspired this work which was so different from the rest. However, Janáček’s new composition al approach was linked among others to his interest in speech, which reflects the psychological state of the individual and the mood of the moment. Janáček was convinced that it was objectively possible to record people’s speech using mu sical notes. He began writing down these speech melodies, as he himself called them, in 1897, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. However, he not only recorded speech melodies; amongst more than four thousand notations we also find the melodies of dogs barking, the buzzing of mosquitoes and the creaking of wooden floors.

Speech melodies are an expression of the organism’s entire state and all the spiritual phases which emerge from it. They show us if a person is either stupid or sensible, sleepy or drowsy, tired or lively. They show us a child or an old man; morning and evening, lightness and darkness; heatwave or frost; loneliness or society. The art in dramatic compositions is to insert speech melodies which, as if by magic, immediately reveal a human being at a certain stage in life.

Leoš Janáček: This Year and Last Year (Hlídka XXII, 1905)

Janáček completed his opera Její pastorkyňa (Jenůfa) in February 1903, one of the saddest times in his life, when he and his wife also lost their second child, their beloved daughter Olga, who died aged twenty-one.

I would bind Jenůfa with a black ribbon for the long illness, pain and laments of my daughter Olga and my little boy Vladimír.

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

Shortly afterwards he offered Jenůfa to the National Theatre in Prague, but it was not long before they returned the opera together with a brief note from the head of the theatre saying that the work could not be accepted. This was a great blow for Janáček. He became depressed and felt a creative impotence. Jenůfa was accepted by the National Theatre in Brno, and even though the premiere on 21 January 1904 was a success, this was more regional in character.

Janáček's draft of the opera Jenůfa.

The interior of the Czech National Theatre at Veveří street.

Leopoldina Svobodová, the first Kostelnička.

Poster for the world premiere of the opera Jenůfa (21. 1. 1904).

The Czech National Theatre in Brno at the corner of Veveří street.

Leoš Janáček Years of Waiting for Recognition

In 1904, when the opera Jenůfa had its premiere, fifty-year-old Janáček asked for early retirement at the Teacher Training Institute so that he could concentrate on his Organ School and composition. This period was also when he started to make regular visits to the spas at Luhačovice.

What was I looking for in those spas? Thirty to thirty-five hours a week teaching, conducting the singers of the association, organising concerts, in charge of the organ loft at the Royal Monastery, whilst writing Jenůfa, getting married, losing my children − I needed to forget myself.

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

During one of his visits to Luhačovice he met Kamila Urválková, whose life story inspired him to write the opera Fate

And she was one of the most beautiful ladies. Her voice was like a viola d’amour. The Luhačovice Slanice lay in the heat of the August sun. Why did she walk about with three fiery roses and why did she tell me the story of her young life? And why was the end so strange? [...] And a mournful work just by its tone, and female by its words, entitled Osud – Fatum.

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

The opera set in the spas of Luhačovice was given to the Vinohrady Theatre, but it was never performed. This was due to the demands placed on the orchestra and singers, who even signed a petition stating that they didn’t want their roles in Fate to ruin their vocal chords. The problematic libretto was also somewhat to blame. It was to be the only opera by Janáček which was to remain unperformed during his lifetime.

An important moment in Leoš Janáček’s artistic development was when he came across the poems of Petr Bezruč, who he felt an affinity with through his social themes.

Your words were like a calling. And I took from them tones of tempestuous rage, despair and pain.

A letter to Petr Bezruč (1. 10. 1924)

He dedicated his male choruses Halfar the Teacher, Maryčka Magdónová and The 70,000 after the poems by Petr Bezruč to new Moravian Teachers’ Choir, which soon introduced them to many places in Europe. However, Janáček’s greatest wish that Jenůfa would finally be performed in Prague remained unfulfilled.

I do not want my repeated request that Jenůfa be heard on the stage of the National Theatre in Prague to be based on flattering Prague reviews, not to mention the local ones. My only complaint is that it was unfair to reject Jenůfa. This is a complaint from a Czech composer whom no-one would grant a hearing.

A letter to Karel Kovařovic (9. 2. 1904)

Janáček began to believe in himself even less. He destroyed some of his autographs, such as the piano composition 1. X. 1905 (From the Street) and the opera Jenůfa

I didn’t value my work, just as I didn’t value what I said. I didn’t believe that anyone would notice anything. I was defeated - even my own students were advising me on how to compose, write for the orchestra. I laughed at thisthere was nothing else I could do.

A letter to J. B. Foerster (24. 6. 1916)

Janáček celebrated his sixtieth birthday in 1914 on the sidelines as a misunder stood provincial composer. However, that would all soon change.

Janáček with graduates and professors of the organ course 1905-06.

Janáček in the spa Luhačovice in 1906.

Kamila Urválková, inspirer of the opera Fate.

Autograph page of the opera Fate.

Leoš Janáček in his garden (around 1910).

Leoš Janáček

A Dream Came True

Thanks to the diplomatic efforts of the chair of the Brno Club of Friends of Art, František Veselý, and his wife, the writer Maria Calma, the director of the National Theatre, Gustav Schmoranz, and the conductor Karel Kovařovic, agreed to perform Jenůfa at the National Theatre in Prague. Janáček agreed to Kovařovic’s condi tion that parts of the opera had to be changed, which meant that the work was greatly altered by Kovařovic, especially in terms of instrumentation. And as a result the grand Prague premiere could take place in May 1916. Until that time Janáček was practically unknown and unappreciated, and then at the age of sixty-two he appeared as a composer with an original approach towards musical drama without pathos and cheap effects, which we are familiar with from some veris mo operas. At around this time Leoš Janáček also began a close relationship with Gabriela Horvátová, who sang Kostelnička at the Prague premiere, as well as start ing a friendship with Max Brod, who “arrived at the right time as if sent from heav en”. Brod brought Jenůfa to the attention of the management of Universal Edition publishers and translated the opera into German. The Court Opera in Vienna also showed interest in Janáček’s opera, performing it in February 1918. This marked the start of Janáček’s worldwide fame. It’s worth noting that the Metropolitan Opera in New York performed Jenůfa as far back as 1924. After the Prague pre miere of Jenůfa, Janáček completed the rhapsody Taras Bulba and the opera The Excursions of Mr Brouček

The foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 was welcomed by a Janáček full of strength and plans for the future.

I have arrived here with the youthful spirit of our republic, with youthful music. I am not one of those who looks back, rather I prefer to look forward. I know that we have to grow, and I do not see this as growing pains, as memories of suffering and oppression. Let us cast that off. We are a nation which means something in the world. We are at the heart of Europe. That heart has to be felt in this Europe!

From Janáček’s speech given in London in 1926.

Maria Jeritza as Jenůfa in Vienna and later in New York.

Gabriela Horvátová, the first Kostelnička at the Prague National Theatre,

Max Brod, writer and translator of Janáček’s work into German.

Leoš Janáček in 1916.

Janáček’s note in the Organ School class register 29. 10. 1918: “Holiday on the day the Czechoslovak state was proclaimed.”

The National Theatre building in Prague

Leoš Janáček

Grand Old Age

The last decade of Janáček’s life was the most creative period in his life. The un common dynamic of creativity and energy which the elderly Janáček displayed is a riddle which Janáček himself answered in one of his letters to his beloved friend Kamila Stösslová. Janáček met the then twenty-five-year-old Kamila in 1917 and their friendship continued until the composer’s death. For Janáček she was a source of inspiration, an ideal woman, and it mattered little that the reality was somewhat different.

And people? They roll their eyes; I’m so successful, there’s a vigour in my compositions. Where does he get it from? A riddle. It burrows within them like a mole as they try to solve it. I would be so happy to shout out, lift you up, point to you, “Look, my dear beloved riddle in life!”

A letter to Kamila Stösslová (12. 3. 1928)

Without doubt this creative period was the most productive in Janáček’s life. In 1920 he wrote the symphonic poem The Ballad of Blaník, a year later he finished the opera Katya Kabanová and then started work on his next opera The Cunning Little Vixen

In 1923 he finished the first string quartet After Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and started work on an opera based on Karel Čapek’s The Makropulos Case. Several times he took part in the international festivals organised by the Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), where he stood alongside the young avant-garde artists, and went on a tour of England in 1926. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Masaryk University in 1925, the first in the institution’s history, and two years later was appoint ed a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences along with Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, and in the same year King Albert of Belgium conferred upon him the Order of King Leopold (such was the impression made by the success of Jenůfa in Antwerp). The Capriccio from 1926 for piano one hand and chamber ensemble was dedicated to the pianist Otakar Hollmann, who lost his right arm during the First World War, and was the first in a series of compositions written by several international composers for war invalids. In the same year Janáček wrote his most famous orchestral work, Sinfonietta, which he dedicated to “my town” of Brno, as well as the no-less-famous Glagolitic Mass

Without the gloom of medieval monastic cells in its motifs, without a trace of clichéd imitative procedures, without a trace of Beethovian pathos, without Haydn’s playfulness; against the obstacle of Witt’s reforms – which estranged Křížkovský from us! Forever the scent of the mild Luhačovice forests – this was incense to me.

I captured the cunning little vixen for the forest and for the sorrow of one’s final years. A merry thing with a sad ending, and I too am standing at that sad end.

A letter to Kamila Stösslová (3. 4. 1928)

Glagolitic Mass, Lidové noviny newspapers (1927)

«« Kamila Stösslová in 1917.

« Autograph page of the opera Katya Kabanova.

Photograph from the premiere production of the opera The Cunning Little Vixen (1924).

Autograph page of the Glagolitic Mass.

Leoš Janáček in 1924. Janáček at the ISCM festival in Venice in 1925 (second from the left, his wife Zdenka).

Leoš Janáček and Kamila Stösslová in Luhačovice (1927).

Janáček in front of his house in Brno, Zdenka Janáčková holding their dog Čipera (1927).

Fanfare from Sinfonietta.

Leoš Janáček Sudden Death

The older that Janáček became, the more progressive and youthful his music. It came from a man who was full of energy and strength. When following the pre miere of the Glagolitic Mass Ludvík Kundera wrote in his review “Janáček the old man, a man who is a strong believer,” the composer wrote back to him succinctly: “None of this old man or believer, young man!”

In the final year of his life he worked on the opera From the House of the Dead based on a novel by Dostoyevsky, which he himself translated from Russian and adapted into a libretto. He also composed his string quartet no. 2 Intimate Letters, which was a kind of personal musical diary dedicated to Kamila Stösslová.

I’ve just started writing something nice. It will have our life in it. It’s going to be called Love Letters... The whole thing will be held together by a strange instrument called the viola d’amore - the viola of love. I’’m so looking forward to it! In this work I will always be together only with you! No third person beside us. Filled with that longing, like with you there in our heaven. I will be so happy to do it! For you know that I know of no other world than you! You are everything to me, I want nothing more than your love.

A letter to Kamila Stösslová (1. 2. 1928)

At the end of July 1928 Janáček left for Hukvaldy, followed by Kamila and her son Oto. He took with him the score for From the House of the Dead in order to make changes and additions. However, he never managed to finish his work. He caught a severe cold and was taken to the sanatorium of Dr Klein in Ostrava, where an X-Ray showed he had caught pneumonia. He died on Sunday 12 August at 10am in Ostrava, and three days later one of the most remarkable composers of the twentieth century was buried at Brno’s Central Cemetery.

He died when the Czechoslovak Exhibition of Contemporary Culture culminated in Brno at the newly built exhibition grounds, and the city was experiencing a fame which Janáček had greatly contributed to.

If it wasn’t for this strange emotional mist from my inherited brain and the blood circulating round me in the youth of majestic nature! The emotions make the composer; not as scientifically as an emotional fund. I’m amazed by the thousands and thousands of rhythms from the worlds of light, colour, sound and matter, and it makes my tone younger through the eternally rhythmic youth of eternally youthful nature.

Apparently alive for seventy years! Celebrate it. In a letter from Písek I read, “Why not, then, celebrate the fact that you were born?”

Leoš Janáček: A View of Life and Works (1924)

The last photo of Janáček, 7 April 1928.

Janáček’s funeral on 15. 8. 1928. The procession in front of the Municipal (today’s Mahen) Theatre.

Janáček’s funeral on 15. 8. 1928. The mourners gathered at Brno’s Central Cemetery.

Leoš Janáček’s grave in Brno.

X-Ray of Janáček’s hand with a ring from Kamila.

Janáček’s diary for Kamila Stösslová.

Autograph page of the opera From the House of the Dead.

Janáček’s house in Hukvaldy.

Leoš Janáček‘s composer, teacher, folklorist, critic, writer, music theorist

3. 7. 1854 born in Hukvaldy 1865 arrived at the foundation of the Augustinian Monastery in Brno

1872–1892? director of the choir in the Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Brno

1874–1875 studied at the Organ School in Prague

1876–1888 active in the Brno Beseda society (choirmaster, conductor and pianist)

1876–1904 teacher at the Teacher Training Institute in Brno

1879–1880 studied at the Leipzig then the Vienna conservatory 13. 7. 1881 married Zdenka Schulzová 7. 12. 1881 appointed headmaster of the Organ School in Brno 15. 8. 1882 birth of his daughter, Olga

1884–88 established and edited the first Moravian music magazine Hudební listy from 1888 dedicated himself to the collection and study of Moravian folk music

16. 5. 1888 birth of his son, Vladimír 9. 11. 1890 death of his son, Vladimír from 1897 copying speech melodies, i.e. recording people’s speech in notated form, also related to his interest in psychology 26. 2. 1903 death of his daughter, Olga

21. 1. 1904 world premiere of the opera Jenůfa at the National Theatre in Brno 2. 7. 1910 moved to a new house in the garden of the Organ School in Brno

1915–1918 composed the orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba 26. 5. 1916 premiere of Jenůfa at the National Theatre in Prague 16. 2. 1918 premiere of Jenůfa at the Court Opera in Vienna 1919 established the Brno Conservatory 23. 4. 1920 world premiere of the opera The Excursions of Mr. Brouček at the National Theatre in Prague 30. 9. 1920 appointed professor of composition at the Master School of the Prague Conservatory operating in Brno 23. 11. 1921 world premiere of the opera Káťa Kabanová at the National Theatre in Brno 6. 11. 1924 world premiere of the opera The Cunning Little Vixen at the National Theatre in Brno

6. 12. 1924 premiere of Jenůfa at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

28. 1. 1925

the first person to be awarded an honorary doctorate from Masaryk University in Brno

28. 4. – 10. 5. 1926 trip to England

26. 6. 1926 world premiere of Sinfonietta at the 8th Sokol Rally in Prague

18. 12. 1926 world premiere of the opera

The Makropulos Case at the National Theatre in Brno 1927 appointed a member of the Prussian Academy of Music in Berlin 5. 12. 1927 world premiere of the Glagolitic Mass at the Stadion in Brno 12. 8. 1928 died in Ostrava

Leoš Janáček‘s operas

Osud [Fate]

JW I/5, 1903-05, rev. 1906, 1907, 1914

Opera in three acts, libretto by Fedora Bartošová

Premiere 13. 3. 1934 (Radio Brno, incomplete), 18. 9. 1934 (Radio Brno, complete), 25. 10. 1958 Brno (first staged production)

Šárka

JW I/1 1887-88, rev. 1919, 1925

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček, based on a play of the same name by Julius Zeyer

Act 3 orchestrated by Osvald Chlubna

Premiere 11. 11. 1925 Brno

First publication Universal Edition - Editio Moravia, Vienna - Brno 2001 (piano-vocal score, full score, performing material, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition).

First edition Dilia, Prague 1964 (piano-vocal score), 1978 (full score, ed. Václav Nosek), Bärenreiter Prague 2015 (full score, piano-vocal score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition)

Příhody lišky Bystroušky

[The Cunning Little Vixen]

JW I/9, 1922-23

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček on a story by Rudolf Těsnohlídek

Premiere 6. 11. 1924 Brno

First edition Universal Edition, Vienna 1924 (pianovocal score), 1961 (full score), Editio Peters, Leipzig 1984 (ed. Miroslav Barvík and Reiner Zimmermann), Universal Edition, Vienna 2010 (piano-vocal score, full score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition)

Výlety páně Broučkovy [The Excursions of Mr Brouček]

Opera in two parts

1. The excursion of Mr Brouček to the moon

Počátek románu [The Beginning of a Romance]

JW I/3, 1891

Opera in one act, libretto by Jaroslav Tichý, based on a short story by Gabriela Preissová

Premiere 10. 2. 1894 Brno

First edition, Dilia - Alkor-Editio, Prague-Kassel 1978 (ed. Evžen Holiš)

2. The excursion of Mr Brouček to the XV century

JW I/7, 1908–18, rev. 1920, 1926

Libretto 1. by Leoš Janáček in collaboration with Karel Mašek, František Gellner, Viktor Dyk and F. S. Procházka, 2. F. S. Procházka

Premiere 23. 4. 1920 Prague

First edition Universal Edition, Vienna 1919 (pianovocal score), 2003 (piano-vocal score, full score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition)

Věc Makropulos

[The Makropulos Case]

JW I/10, 1923-25

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček, based on a comedy of the same name by Karel Čapek Premiere 18. 12. 1926 Brno

First edition Universal Edition, Vienna 1926 (pianovocal score), 1970 (full score), 2014 (full score, pianovocal score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition)

Její pastorkyňa [Jenůfa]

JW I/4, 1894–1903, rev. 1907–1908, 1916

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček after the play Her stepdaughter by Gabriela Preissová

Premiere 21. 1. 1904 Brno

First edition Club of the Friends of Art, Brno 1908 (piano-vocal score), Universal Edition, Vienna 1918 (full score), 1969 (full score, ed. Joannes Martin Dürr), 1996 (full score, piano-vocal score, ed. Charles Mackerras, John Tyrrell, Brno version 1908), 2019–20 (full score, piano-vocal score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition –in preparation).

Káťa Kabanová

JW I/8, 1920–21, rev. 1927

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček after A. N. Ostrovsky's play The Thunderstorm (translation Vincenc Červinka)

Premiere 23. 11. 1921 Brno

First edition Universal Edition, Vienna 1922 (full score and piano-vocal score), 1992, 1993 (full score and piano-vocal score, ed. Charles Mackerras, 1927 version), 2021 (full score and piano-vocal score, ed. Jiří Zahrádka, critical edition, in print).

Z mrtvého domu

[From the House of the Dead]

JW I/11, 1927-28, rev. 1930 (Chlubna, Bakala, Zítek)

Opera in three acts, libretto by Leoš Janáček after Dostoyevsky's novel Notes from the House of the Dead

Premiere 12. 4. 1930 Brno

First edition Universal Edition, Vienna 1930 (full score and piano-vocal score), 1990 (full score, ed. Charles Mackerras, John Tyrrell), 2019 (full score, piano-vocal score, ed. John Tyrrell, critical edition)

Leoš Janáček and Brno, City of Music

Leoš Janáček is the world number one Czech opera composer and ranks among the twenty most performed opera composers in the world. Just as Mozart is as sociated with Salzburg and Wagner with Bayreuth, Leoš Janáček belongs to Brno. It is the place where he lived, composed, and thanks to his tireless organization al activities significantly influenced the musical life and cultural character of the city for many years. His legacy still lives on in Brno to this day and the city has proudly identified itself with the composer. Thanks to the Moravian Museum, it is possible to visit the Leoš Janáček Memorial and the composer’s archive, which is part of the UNESCO Memory of the World register; thanks to the National Theatre Brno, the international Janáček Brno festival takes place every second year; and thanks to the TIC BRNO (Brno Tourist Information Office), Janáček has his own website leosjanacek.eu and educational trail.

At leosjanacek.eu you can find news, interesting facts about the composer’s life, peruse a complete inventory of his work, play a music card game or watch charm ing animation films that illustrate the most important moments in the Maestro’s life in three minutes. It also offers a range of original gifts with Janáček motifs by artist Vendula Chalánková or with Janáček’ speech melodies.

Brno is an attractive destination for music all year round. It is a city of students and culture: music is studied (Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, con servatory, music schools) and also performed here. The Janáček Opera, which is part of National Theatre Brno, performs opera and ballet, while classical music concerts are largely the remit of the Brno Philharmonic, which understandably has Janáček’s music as a constant part of its repertoire. There are concerts and festivals for a variety of music genres throughout the year in Brno. Up-to-date information on musical events in Brno can be found at www.musicfriendlycity.cz Thanks to this broad range of activities Brno as a City of Music was added to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2017, linking it to more than 180 cities around the world.

Leoš Janáček in three minutes –an animation video at the website leosjanacek.eu

A production of Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen at the National Theatre Brno

Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts

The Janáček Theatre, home of the National Theatre Brno opera and ballet ensembles

Marathon of Music summer festival

Brno Philharmonic

A tram with characters from Leoš Janáček’s operas

In the footsteps of Leoš Janáček in Brno

Where else to follow in the footsteps of Leoš Janáček than in Brno, the city where the world-renowned composer spent most of his life and where the ma jority of his works were first performed. In 2018 TIC BRNO introduced a Janáček trail in the centre of Brno including the locations and buildings where Janáček lived, composed, conducted, taught, heard the premieres of his compositions, met with friends, went for walks, etc. Information panels have been installed in the city centre; a guidebook in Czech, English and German has been published, while leosjanacek.eu contains a wealth of illustrated material connected to in dividual places as well as information about guided tours.

Among the most important sites connected with Janáček is the house on Smetanova street where the Maestro spent the last twenty years of his life and which is now open to the public as the Leoš Janáček Memorial. The former Organ School next door is home to the Leoš Janáček Archive with an almost com plete set of the composer’s papers, which includes manuscripts of all Janáček’s compositions and librettos, official documents, as well as extensive private and official correspondence. In 2017 this exceptionally comprehensive and exten sive archive was given recognition through its inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the World register.

In the Footsteps of Leoš Janáček

Footsteps of Leoš Janáček

the Footsteps of

A Brno guidebook

An information panel in front of the Leoš Janáček Memorial

Janáček Brno Festival

In 2004, as part of the commemorations of the 150th anniversary of Janáček’s birth, the Janáček festival took place in Brno, where the composer’s complete opera works were performed. This led to the idea of organizing a regular bien nial festival, which has been receiving great acclaim since its launch in 2008. Since then, every two years Brno has played host to the International Opera and Music Festival Janáček Brno, which showcases the best Czech and interna tional productions of Janáček’s music. The festival is based around opera per formances by Czech and international opera companies, the juxtaposition of differently conceived stagings by major figures, and the presentation of world premieres and previously unseen original versions of works by Leoš Janáček. The festival features symphonic and chamber concerts, matinees, lectures, pro grammes for children, exhibitions, alternative concerts, and theatre and film performances linked to the composer. The festival organizer is the National Theatre Brno.

The festival brings a large number of foreign visitors to Brno – as well as the world-class programme, they appreciate the opportunity to listen to Janáček’s music in the authentic setting of the city where it originated and in most cases also had its world premiere.

In 2018, Janáček Brno was the first festival in the Czech Republic to win the prestigious International Opera Awards prize for the best world festival.

The next Janáček Brno festival will be held from 28 September – 16 October 2020. It will offer twenty-eight top-class productions over nineteen days, presenting world-renowned directors and musicians such as Robert Carsen, Claus Guth, Jakub Hrůša, Karita Mattila, Pavol Breslik, the Pavel Haas Quartet, and the Bamberg Symphony. The festival theme is the artistic turmoil during the first two decades of the twentieth century and the search for new types of musical expression in operatic as well as instrumental works.

Káťa Kabanová. National Theatre Brno (Janáček Brno 2016)

Jenůfa. Teatr Wielki Opera Poznań (Janáček Brno 2018)

Steve Reich: Cave. Brno Contemporary Orchestra (Janáček Brno 2016)

A recital by Thomas Adès (Janáček Brno 2018)

The Makropulos Case. Opera Vlaanderen (Janáček Brno 2018)

From the House of the Dead. Welsh National Opera (Janáček Brno 2018)

Leoš Janáček by Vendula Chalánková

Leoš and his nearest and dearest

Based on historical photographs kept in the Leoš Janáček Archive.

Vendula Chalánková is a textile artist, designer, painter, comics illustrator and screenwriter.She has been working with TIC BRNO since 2017 on unconventional presentations of Leoš Janáček.

Her work can be seen at www.vendulachalankova.cz

Leoš and his operas

Janáček is the most-performed Czech opera composer in the world. Can you name his operas?

Leoš Janáček (1914) Leoš Janáček in Venice (1925) Kamila Stösslová, Leoš Janáček‘s friend (1927)

Leoš and Zdeňka Janáček before their wedding (1881)

Leoš Janáček in Luhačovice (1926)

Leoš Janáček in Prague (1928)

Zdeňka, Leoš Janáček‘s wife (1880)

ŠÁRKA

Zdeňka, Leoš Janáček‘s wife (1917)

JENŮFA

Olga, Leoš Janáček‘s daughter (1890)

THE EXCURSIONS OF MR BROUČEK

Olga, Leoš Janáček‘s daughter (1902)

KÁŤA KABANOVÁ

FATE

Leoš Janáček in front of his house, his wife Zdeňka is holding their dog, Čipera (1927)

THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN THE MAKROPULOS CASE

Mařa Stejskalová, the Janáčeks‘ housekeeper

FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

THE BEGINNING OF A ROMANCE