文：司馬勤（Ken Smith） 編譯：李正欣

我至今還在為10月在北京看到的一個(gè)節(jié)目而感到困惑。由北京國(guó)際音樂(lè)節(jié)與阿姆斯特丹話劇團(tuán)、比利時(shí)透明歌劇院（Muziektheater Transparant）等多家機(jī)構(gòu)聯(lián)合制作、由曾獲托尼獎(jiǎng)的導(dǎo)演伊沃·馮·霍夫（Ivo van Hove）執(zhí)導(dǎo)的《消失人的日記》（

The Diary of One who Disappeared

），這是根據(jù)萊奧什·雅納切克（Leo? Janá?ek）同名聲樂(lè)組曲所改編的舞臺(tái)演出。說(shuō)實(shí)話，“舞臺(tái)演出”這個(gè)字眼從戲劇文學(xué)的角度來(lái)看不太恰當(dāng)。馮·霍夫在組曲的22首歌曲之間（原作是譜寫給男高音、女低音與三重唱的不凡之作）穿插了多封作曲家親自撰寫的書(shū)信。要知道，組曲的歌詞（雅納切克最早從布拉格的報(bào)刊中讀到的）圍繞著鄉(xiāng)村男孩狂戀吉卜賽女郎的情結(jié)。當(dāng)時(shí)，作曲家正迷戀著比他年輕40歲的卡米拉·斯特絲洛娃（Kamila St?sslová），這位女士就是啟發(fā)雅納切克創(chuàng)作《卡佳·卡巴諾娃》（

Katya Kabanova

）、《 狡 猾 的 小 狐 貍 》（

The Cunning Little Vixen

）與《馬克羅普洛斯檔案》（

The Makropulos Case

）中女主角形象的靈感泉源。原作中的鄉(xiāng)村男孩甚至名為“雅涅切克”（Jani?ek）。你大概能猜得到作曲家的心思吧。

馮·霍夫安排一位男演員誦讀作曲家的書(shū)信，隨后一位男高音（他穿的衣服與男演員很相似）唱出一系列與書(shū)信中的情感如出一轍的歌曲。一位女中音代表了斯特絲洛娃與吉卜賽女郎。在一個(gè)段落里，兩位男士（男演員與男高音）將他們的愛(ài)慕與癡迷形象化：兩人一起篩選心目中“繆斯女神”的照片，更把它們投影放大到墻上，以此來(lái)取舍要把哪一張沖印出來(lái)。

從視覺(jué)上看，舞臺(tái)畫(huà)面很有說(shuō)服力，盡管敘事方面令人一頭霧水。這也是問(wèn)題所在：我觀賞過(guò)雅納切克的歌劇、閱讀過(guò)雅納切克的傳記，甚至看過(guò)他的情書(shū)（順便說(shuō)一下，斯特絲洛娃并不怎么回信），但有一半時(shí)間還是搞不清楚舞臺(tái)上的來(lái)龍去脈。我不禁同情起當(dāng)晚在北京看演出的觀眾們來(lái)：在中國(guó)，雅納切克的歌劇并沒(méi)有什么機(jī)會(huì)亮相，除了最近那次刪節(jié)過(guò)的浸沒(méi)式《小狐貍》（同樣也是北京國(guó)際音樂(lè)節(jié)上呈獻(xiàn)的制作）。

學(xué)者保羅·溫菲爾德（Paul Wingfield）在評(píng)論雅納切克夫人茲登卡（Zdenka）那本憂傷的回憶錄時(shí)，提醒我們不應(yīng)強(qiáng)行將主人公的生平與音樂(lè)掛上鉤，或是單憑音樂(lè)來(lái)追溯現(xiàn)實(shí)生活經(jīng)歷。很明顯，馮·霍夫沒(méi)有接觸過(guò)這一提示；但從另一方面來(lái)看，馮·霍夫也從來(lái)沒(méi)有說(shuō)他的《消失人的日記》與作曲家的生平有什么關(guān)系。那只不過(guò)是一位藝術(shù)家對(duì)另一位藝術(shù)家的回應(yīng)——雅納切克也正是為了回應(yīng)報(bào)刊上的文字而譜寫出《消失人的日記》組曲。觀眾需要在演出中細(xì)細(xì)琢磨，才可得出自己的結(jié)論?？商拱椎卣f(shuō)，這種要求對(duì)不同的觀眾來(lái)說(shuō)是不公平的。

布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院舉辦的第六屆國(guó)際歌劇與音樂(lè)節(jié)上，《浪漫的開(kāi)端》劇照

＊＊＊

幾周后，我重回雅納切克的故鄉(xiāng)布魯諾。去年我首次造訪這個(gè)城市，卻只逗留了一天——更準(zhǔn)確地說(shuō)，我只在那里待了一晚——為的是觀看羅伯特·卡爾森（Robert Carsen）執(zhí)導(dǎo)的《卡佳·卡巴諾娃》。演出過(guò)后，我被作曲家能把本地文化根源發(fā)揮得淋漓盡致、締造出令人驚訝的音樂(lè)藝術(shù)的才華所深深吸引。

那次的全部經(jīng)歷驅(qū)使我開(kāi)始探索雅納切克畢生的作品目錄。很多作曲家的晚期作品都會(huì)被追捧，雅納切克也不例外，而他年輕時(shí)代的作品，無(wú)論是任何形式的演出或錄音，都很難能找到。雅納切克最初的兩部歌劇都各只有一套錄音。他畢生的第二部歌劇——《浪漫的開(kāi)端》（

The Beginning of a Romance

）——只有一幕，唯一的錄音早已絕版，而該黑膠唱片的網(wǎng)上零售價(jià)如今已飆升至200多美元。歌劇的時(shí)長(zhǎng)才不過(guò)40來(lái)分鐘，因此平均一分鐘音樂(lè)的價(jià)格高達(dá)5美元。

吸引我重返這個(gè)富有魅力的捷克城市的原因，正是布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院舉辦的第六屆國(guó)際歌劇與音樂(lè)節(jié)，本年度的主題是“雅納切克·布魯諾·2018”。今年是捷克共和國(guó)（解體之前是捷克斯洛伐克社會(huì)主義共和國(guó)）建國(guó)一百周年，順理成章地，布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院今年節(jié)目安排的主線是雅納切克的全部歌劇劇目。演出單位除了本地團(tuán)體，還有來(lái)自歐洲其他國(guó)家的院團(tuán)。

雖然歌劇節(jié)沒(méi)有把全套作品按創(chuàng)作年代依次呈現(xiàn)——開(kāi)幕演出是布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院自家的《狡猾的小狐貍》新制作，這部歌劇算是雅納切克的中期作品——但整體的日程編排上別出心裁，從作曲家的早期作品慢慢延伸至后期，還加入了幾場(chǎng)室內(nèi)樂(lè)與管弦樂(lè)團(tuán)音樂(lè)會(huì)。除了雅納切克作品以外，還有他的前輩甚至今天雅納切克音樂(lè)學(xué)院后輩的作品，充分表現(xiàn)出這位大師的影響和傳承。

我離開(kāi)布魯諾幾天之后，馮·霍夫的《消失人的日記》亮相該歌劇節(jié)。我相信在布魯諾的演出效果肯定會(huì)跟北京的完全不同。這部制作會(huì)讓中國(guó)觀眾感到迷惑，但因?yàn)椴剪斨Z的生活氛圍就如此，所以那里的觀眾會(huì)更容易理解每一個(gè)細(xì)微的差別。

＊＊＊

上面說(shuō)到馮·霍夫忽視溫菲爾德“不要把雅納切克的藝術(shù)與生平混為一談”的警告，在布魯諾似乎也沒(méi)人理會(huì)這一點(diǎn)。拉開(kāi)歌劇節(jié)帷幕的《狡猾的小狐貍》由布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院藝術(shù)總監(jiān)謝里·赫爾曼（Ji?í He?man）執(zhí)導(dǎo)，故事完全基于這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)：魯?shù)婪?·特斯諾里德克（Rudolf Těsnohlídek）——在布魯諾報(bào)紙上發(fā)表《小狐貍》故事的原作者——他曾照顧一個(gè)被遺棄的兒童，后來(lái)更號(hào)召社會(huì)各界籌辦兒童福利院。

多樣歌劇院在兩天之內(nèi)演出了雅納切克首部歌劇《薩爾卡》的兩個(gè)不同版本，音樂(lè)會(huì)版（左）與舞臺(tái)版（右）

回想起來(lái)，這個(gè)史實(shí)讓我更欣賞去年在北京國(guó)際音樂(lè)節(jié)搬演的、寂靜歌劇團(tuán)制作的，意味深長(zhǎng)的《小狐貍》。《小狐貍》里并沒(méi)有狐貍——只有獵人遇上的、流浪街頭的、有著狐貍文身的女童，帶她回家后妻子不悅，兒子更以虐待她為樂(lè)。

與之相比，赫爾曼的《狡猾的小狐貍》的處理手法不那么具有對(duì)抗性，但效果更加細(xì)膩：兒童福利院舉辦一場(chǎng)演出，參與表演的孩子們都站在布袋玩偶后面。歌劇與戲劇演出的界限變得越來(lái)越模糊，與文學(xué)顧問(wèn)帕特里斯·查斯特科娃（Patricie ?ástková）撰寫的介紹文章中提出的“是真實(shí)，還是童話？”相得益彰。

我們也應(yīng)該探究雅納切克與捷克民族主義的關(guān)系?！督苹男『偂返囊魳?lè)應(yīng)該讓每一個(gè)捷克人都引以為豪，但是它與捷克建國(guó)百周年有沒(méi)有直接關(guān)系，就不太清楚了（盡管選擇今年做這個(gè)制作肯定比較容易獲得政府資助）。對(duì)于布魯諾這個(gè)城市與民眾來(lái)說(shuō)，赫爾曼的制作毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)與他們息息相關(guān)。

第二天晚上，歌劇節(jié)安排了一場(chǎng)民族音樂(lè)演出——展示雅納切克音樂(lè)世界中不同文化傳統(tǒng)的混合性，包括摩拉維亞、波希米亞、斯洛文尼亞以及其他的民間音樂(lè)。有些作品的真實(shí)性值得懷疑，但我猜測(cè)策劃人是故意這樣編排，因?yàn)檎w的效果，讓我們領(lǐng)略到雅納切克的民族音樂(lè)田野考察既明確了他的民族主義根源，又幫助塑造了他后來(lái)的現(xiàn)代主義風(fēng)格。

以上兩種意識(shí)形態(tài)之間的空隙為多樣歌劇團(tuán)（Opera Diversa）提供了藝術(shù)土壤。這個(gè)當(dāng)?shù)氐男⌒透鑴F(tuán)，在兩天之內(nèi)演出了雅納切克首部歌劇《薩爾卡》（

?árka

）的兩個(gè)不同版本?！端_爾卡》不能算是作曲家少年時(shí)期的作品，雅納切克當(dāng)時(shí)已經(jīng)30多歲了，但從風(fēng)格上來(lái)說(shuō)，這的確是個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)?！端_爾卡》原本的鋼琴版本（由于作曲家與編劇意見(jiàn)不合，該劇創(chuàng)作后數(shù)十年都沒(méi)有公演）很大程度上受制于斯美塔那的民族主義音樂(lè)（斯美塔那在《我的祖國(guó)》這部交響詩(shī)里，同樣把波希米亞神話中的女武士當(dāng)作題材）。但是雅納切克的修訂與配器版，終于在作品完成20年后由他的學(xué)生奧斯瓦爾德·赫盧布納（Osvald Chiubna）經(jīng)過(guò)最后潤(rùn)色加工后搬上舞臺(tái)——只包含他原作音樂(lè)的大約三分之一，而風(fēng)格上似乎吸收了雅納切克后期的、更成功作品中的元素。

如果說(shuō)加布里埃拉·塔多諾娃（Gabriela Tardonová）的導(dǎo)演手法為波希米亞神話穿上完全現(xiàn)代的服裝（演員陣容與前一晚的鋼琴伴奏音樂(lè)會(huì)版一模一樣），那么這部作品的重新配器為觀眾提供了更廣闊的現(xiàn)代主義視角。作曲家安德里·凱斯（Ond?ej Kyas）把雅納切克鏗鏘的音域壓縮為高音域的弦樂(lè)（小提琴、中提琴）與彈撥樂(lè)器（豎琴、吉他），配上寬廣音域的木管銅管，令我聯(lián)想到庫(kù)爾特·魏爾（Kurt Weill）當(dāng)年前衛(wèi)的樂(lè)隊(duì)加上路易·安德里森（Louis Andriessen）的配器手法。

相比之下，第二天晚上的《浪漫的開(kāi)端》似乎從民俗性來(lái)說(shuō)退了一步，這也許可以解釋該作品在舞臺(tái)上為何如此罕見(jiàn)。或許是因?yàn)樗鼊∏榈暮?jiǎn)單扼要——女孩遇見(jiàn)了英俊的貴族飛行員，忘記了她從前的農(nóng)家情人；也或者是因?yàn)樽髑野l(fā)現(xiàn)自己在第三部歌劇《耶奴發(fā)》（

Jen?fa

）中也有類似的情節(jié)，并試圖掩蓋自己年輕時(shí)的缺點(diǎn)。布魯諾音樂(lè)學(xué)院這一次的演出表明，這部只有45分鐘的作品很難找到合適的“下半場(chǎng)”劇目，這也可能是鮮少被制作的原因。導(dǎo)演克里斯蒂安娜·貝爾克雷迪（Kristiana Belcredi）將雅納切克這部罕有上演的歌劇與作曲家更罕見(jiàn)的芭蕾舞劇《拉科斯·拉科齊》（

Rákos Rákoczy

）配在一起。他拋棄了芭蕾舞劇的原創(chuàng)情節(jié)，以一個(gè)與歌劇情節(jié)相呼應(yīng)的故事取代，順利地連通了兩部藝術(shù)作品。

這兩個(gè)“尋求愛(ài)情和尋找自我的年輕女性”的故事不僅在敘述上，而且在題材上都很相似，很容易將它們聯(lián)系在一起，此外這兩部作品中都編排有民間歌舞的情節(jié)?；旧希偶{切克不斷地咀嚼那些原始的素材，直到第三部歌劇《耶奴發(fā)》中，民間元素才被完全消化。

歌劇節(jié)暫且跳過(guò)了大名鼎鼎的《耶奴發(fā)》——阿爾維斯·哈曼尼斯（Alvis Harmanis）為波蘭國(guó)家歌劇院的制作一周后才登臺(tái)——直接上演了《命運(yùn)》（

Destiny

）。如果說(shuō)有什么區(qū)別的話，摩拉維亞-西里西亞劇院的制作證明，雖然《耶奴發(fā)》的音樂(lè)成就無(wú)與倫比，但作曲家接著的那部《命運(yùn)》在實(shí)際掌控戲劇方面卻一團(tuán)糟。

首先，《命運(yùn)》是一個(gè)錯(cuò)綜復(fù)雜的故事：一個(gè)作曲家寫了一部關(guān)于一個(gè)不忠誠(chéng)的情人的歌劇，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己真正的情人（和靈感泉源）其實(shí)一直都很忠誠(chéng)。兩人團(tuán)聚不久她又悲慘地去世。多年后，歌劇終于上演，他已經(jīng)把劇中關(guān)于女人不忠的部分刪除了。演員們意識(shí)到歌劇的緣由后，催促作曲家把結(jié)局寫完，但是作曲家在作品未完成之前不幸去世。

布魯諾國(guó)家歌劇院藝術(shù)總監(jiān)謝里·赫爾曼

雅納切克如此大膽的劇情幾乎迸發(fā)出了后現(xiàn)代主義的自我意識(shí)，不過(guò)也同樣存在將所有情節(jié)捆綁在一起的僵局。制作更有演員人選的問(wèn)題要考慮?！睹\(yùn)》需要近25名獨(dú)唱演員，通常每人只唱幾句，許多人更演唱不止一個(gè)角色。今天唯一能真正搬演這部作品的，就是類似摩拉維亞-西里西亞這樣規(guī)模的劇院，院內(nèi)已經(jīng)有眾多獨(dú)唱演員。

但從觀眾的角度來(lái)看，就算是謝里·涅科夫斯?fàn)枺↗i?i Nekvsil）如此精簡(jiǎn)的制作，也在表述清楚故事上出現(xiàn)了一些問(wèn)題。盡管我手上有一本節(jié)目?jī)?cè)，但我仍常常弄不清是哪位表演者在唱哪個(gè)角色。過(guò)了一會(huì)兒，你不得不放棄，只得任由音樂(lè)按照自己的邏輯進(jìn)行下去。

最終，那就是在作曲家近在咫尺的城鎮(zhèn)觀賞其多部早期作品所得出的結(jié)論。雅納切克的后期作品經(jīng)歷了漫長(zhǎng)而緩慢的過(guò)程才為國(guó)際所熟知，但在這整整一周的時(shí)間里，我在布魯諾時(shí)時(shí)刻刻都被提醒著，他來(lái)自哪里。

I’m still puzzling over a show I saw in Beijing last October. The Beijing Music Festival had co-produced(with Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the Belgian company Muziektheater Transparent and several other partners)a staging of Leo? Janá?ek’s song cycle

The Diary of One who Disappeared

by the Tony Award-winning director Ivo van Hove. Actually, “staging” is rather a dramaturgical understatement. Van Hove intersperses the cycle’s 22 songs (for a rare combination of tenor, alto and vocal trio)with many of the composer’s own letters.You see, the texts of the songs (which Janá?ek first read in a Prague newspaper) are all about a village boy’s mad love for a gypsy girl. Janá?ek at the time was obsessed with Kamila St?sslová, a woman 40 years his junior (and the inspiration for the title characters of

Katya Kabanova

,

The Cunning Little Vixen

and

The Makropulos Case

). The village boy in the original poems was even named “Jani?ek.” You can probably see where this is going.

Van Hove has an actor read from the composer’s letters, followed by a tenor (dressed much like the actor) performing songs falling into the same emotional state. A mezzo-soprano vaguely represents both St?sslová and the gypsy girl. At one point,both the actor and tenor, expressing their creative obsession in visual terms, sift through photographs of their muse—projected in striking detail—trying to decide which one to print.

多樣歌劇院制作的《薩爾卡》

Visually, it was all rather compelling, despite its narrative being practically impenetrable. Here’s the thing: I’ve seen the operas, read Janá?ek’s biography,perused his love letters (St?sslová didn’t write back much, by the way), and still I didn't know what was going on half the time. Think of the poor people from Beijing, where the only Janá?ek opera ever performed has been an abridged, theatrically immersive version of

Vixen

(again, at the Beijing Music Festival).

The scholar Paul Wingfield, in reviewing the rather unhappy memoirs of Janá?ek’s wife Zdenka, warns against either connecting biography with music or using music to trace biography. Clearly, that message never got to van Hove; but then again, his show never claims to be biography. It’s merely one artist responding to another, much as Janá?ek did with his own source materials. Audience members need to sift through the pieces themselves and reach their own conclusions. But frankly, not all audiences are created equal.

＊＊＊

A few weeks later I found myself once again in Brno,Janá?ek’s hometown. Last time, it was only a day trip—or rather, an overnight—to see Robert Carsen’s production of

Katya Kabanova

, but by the time I left I’d become rather smitten by the composer’s ability to spin vernacular sources into spectacular art.The whole experience had sent me in search of as much of Janá?ek’s music as I could find. Like most composers, his later works are held in highest regard, the youthful works difficult to encounter in any form.His first two operas have only one recording each; his second, the one-act

Beginning of a Romance

, has been long out of print and, priced at more than US$200 on internet sites, cost essentially US$5 per minute.

So what brought me back to this charming Czech town was the National Theatre Brno’s 6International Opera and Music Festival, dubbed “Janá?ek Brno 2018.” in honor of the 100anniversary of founding of the Czech Republic, the company devoted its programming to presenting all of Janá?ek’s operas in a mix of local and international productions.

Though not technically a cycle—the festival opened out of sequence with the National Theatre’s own production of

The Cunning Little Vixen

—the program order did generally move from the composer’s early works to his later ones, with a few chamber music and orchestral concerts thrown in. Musical offerings also included a few of Janá?ek’s predecessors as well as some newly composed works by students at the Janá?ek Academy, presumably taking the pulse of the master’s legacy.A few days after I left, the festival even presented van Hove’s

Diary of One who Disappeared

, which surely would’ve been a completely different experience from the performance in Beijing. Where Chinese befuddlement was plainly palpable in the theatre, people in Brno would’ve understood every single nuance.

＊＊＊

It’s one thing for van Hove to ignore warnings about mixing Janá?ek’s art and life, but no one in Brno seemed to have gotten Wingfield’s memo either. The opening

Vixen

, created by National Theatre artistic director Ji?í He?man, was based entirely around the fact that Rudolf Těsnohlídek, the author of the

Vixen

stories originally published in a Brno newspaper,had once befriended an abandoned child and later spearheaded a local home for forsaken youths.

《浪漫的開(kāi)端》（上）和芭蕾舞劇《拉科斯·拉科齊》（下）組成了一整晚的演出

In retrospect, that revelation gave entirely new weight to Silent Opera’s immersive production

Vixen

at last year’s Beijing Music Festival, where there was no “vixen” at all—simply a hunter who finds a street urchin (with a vixen tattoo) and brings her to his home,to the consternation of his wife and the perverse entertainment of his kids.

He?man’s production is less confrontational, yet far more intricate: The young residents of a children’s home participate in a small pageant, where humans wear masks and stand behind stuffed animals. Lines blur between the opera and its performance, entirely befitting a program essay by dramaturge Patricie ?ástková asking, “Is it real, or is it a fairy tale?”

One could ask a similar question regarding Janá?ek’s relationship to Czech nationalism.

Vixen

has music that should make any Czech eminently proud,but its connection to the Czech centenary (applications for government funding notwithstanding) is still a bit hazy. How connected He?man’s production was to the people and heritage of Brno, on the other hand, was simply beyond dispute.

The next night, the festival took a slight detour into a mix of Moravian, Bohemian, Silesian and other folk styles that formed the cultural mélange of Janá?ek’s sound world. Some were of dubious authenticity,but that seemed precisely the point, since the cumulative effect was to show how the sonic brew of Janá?ek’s ethnomusicalogical fieldwork both defined his nationalistic roots and helped to shape his later modernist style.

The space between those two “isms” became a playground for Opera Diversa, a small but intrepid company that performed two contrasting versions of Janá?ek’s first opera. One hesitates to call

?árka

juvenilia, since the composer was in his mid-30s, but stylistically it marks a major gearshift.

?árka

’s original piano version (unperformed for decades due to a conflict with the librettist) is very much beholden to the nationalism of Bed?ich Smetana (who, after all, had musicalized his own account of Bohemia’s mythical woman warrior as one of the tone-poems in

Má vlast

). But Janá?ek’s revised version—first staged 20 years later with final touches added by his pupil Osvald Chlubna—contained only about 30 percent of his original music, with orchestration that clearly pointed the way to his more accomplished operas.

If Gabriela Tardonová’s staging (using the same cast and chorus as the concert performance of the piano score the night before) clad Bohemian myth in thoroughly modern dress, the production’s reorchestration offered a broader modernist perspective. By compressing Janá?ek’s sonorous breadth into high bowed strings (violin and viola),plucked strings (harp and guitar) an a full range of winds and brass, composer Ond?ej Kyas fashioned forward-looking forces resembling a Kurt Weill pit band as scored by Louis Andriessen.

By comparison,

The Beginning of a Romance

the next evening seemed something of a folkloric regression,which may explain its infrequency on stage. Or the rarity may be due to its sketchy synopsis—girl meets dashing aristocratic test pilot and forgets her former peasant beau—or perhaps to the composer figuring out was he was doing in his next opera,

Jen?fa

, and deciding to bury his youthful transgressions.The offering by the Brno Conservatory suggests that the opera’s scarcity of productions is partly because the 45-minute piece simply lacks a suitable companion. Pairing Janá?ek’s rare opera with the even rarer

Rákos Rákoczy

, his only ballet, director Kristiana Belcredi smoothly bridged the two art forms—partly by dumping the ballet’s original scenario and replacing it with a story echoing that of the opera.The two “young-women-looking-for-love-andfinding-themselves” stories linked not just the narratives but also their stylistic similarities, weaving folk singing and dancing in both works throughout the evening.Ultimately, though, this was still Janá?ek chewing his source material. The folk element wouldn't become fully digested until

Jen?fa

.The festival, for the time being, skipped

Jen?fa

(which appeared later, in Alvis Harmanis’s production for the Polish National Opera) and moved directly to

Destiny

. If anything, the production by the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre proved that

Jen?fa

’s unqualified musical success was no guarantee of mastering practical dramatic concerns.

Destiny

has, first of all, a convoluted story: A composer who has written an opera about an unfaithful lover finds that his real lover (and inspiration) had not been unfaithful at all. Years after they reunite(and she has tragically died) his opera finally reaches production and he begins removing parts about the woman’s infidelity. The cast, having realized the opera’s inspirations, pushes the composer for his ending, but he too dies before the opera is completed.

Janá?ek’s bold premise, bursting with protopostmodern self-reference, never quite ties all its strands together. Then there’s also the cast to consider: Some 25 performers, often singing roles of only a few lines, many singing more than one role.The only company capable of putting on a production today would be one like the Moravian-Silesian Theatre,with a ready roster of singers on hand.

From the audience’s perspective, even Ji?í Nekvsil’s fairly streamlined production had problems getting the story across clearly. Despite having a program book in hand, I often had no idea which performer was singing which role. After a while, you just had to sit back and hear the music unfold on its own terms.

And that, ultimately, was the take-home message of the festival, where so many of the composer’s works were performed in such a short time, in the town where they were originally written. Janá?ek’s later works have endured a long, slow climb into the international repertory, but for several days audiences were constantly reminded exactly where he came from.

摩拉維亞-西里西亞劇院制作的《命運(yùn)》劇照