Leos Janacek: The Makropulos Affair: The Diary Of [CD]

Leos Janacek: The Makropulos Affair: The Diary Of [CD] (ONLINE ORDER ONLY)

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In November 2025, SOMM pays special tribute to the centenary of Sir Charles Mackerras (1925 - 2010) who was, amongst other stellar achievements, an outstanding interpreter of the music of Czech composer Leos JanacekÂ (1854 - 1928). At the age of 25, and over the next six decades, Mackerras introduced generations of London opera-goers to Janacek's extraordinary masterpieces, and he was directly responsible for these works becoming established in the British operatic repertoire. Our centenary tribute features the release of a remastered broadcast, from 1964, of Mackerras's first London production of the opera The Makropulos Affair. Also included is Janacek's quasi-operaticÂ song cycle, The Diary of One who Disappeared. Audio restoration is by Lani Spahr, whose previous restorations for SOMM of works by Elgar, Bruckner, Holst, and Bliss have recently received no less than three Gramophone Editor's Choices. Shortly after Mackerras arrived in the UK from Australia in 1947, aÂ British CouncilÂ Scholarship enabled him to study conducting withÂ Vaclav TalichÂ at the Prague Academy of Music, during which time he discovered Czech music and Janacek in particular. His breakthrough in introducing Janacek's unfamiliar music to British audiences came in February 1964, when he conducted The Makropulos Affair at Sadler's Wells. This release is an exciting, highly-charged souvenir of that first London production. The title of the opera, inspired by Karel Capek's 1922 play, refers to a century-old probate case, which holds the key to the formula for a life-extending elixir. The coolly enigmatic opera diva Emilia Marty shows great interest in the case, and is revealed to be Elina Makropulos, a woman fromÂ Crete, who has lived for 337 years. This recording features the Australian dramatic soprano Marie Collier, an outstanding exponent of the role. The vocal writing in the opera is predominantly conversational, underpinned by an orchestral score that is both uncompromisingly modern and evocative of ancient times. The lead characters in two of Janacek's operas Kata inÂ Katya KabanovaÂ and Emilia Marty inÂ The Makropulos Affair were inspired by Kamila Stosslova with whom he fell deeply in love, despite their both being married and he being almost forty years her senior. The earliest work to be inspired by Kamila wasÂ The Diary of One who Disappeared, begun the month after Janacek met her in 1917. This unorthodox song cycle for tenor, contralto, female voices, and piano was inspired by a diary-in-poems about a village boy who falls in love with the gipsy girl Zofka. Janacek wrote to Kamila, "All through the work I thought of you! You were my Zofka." This 1956 recording features Bernard Keeffe's English translation with Richard Lewis, tenor, Maureen Forrester, contralto, women from the BBC Singers, and pianist Ernest Lush.

Tracklist:

Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Prelude
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Oh dear, my goodness!
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Come this way please
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Yes. Just what do you require?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Gone at last!
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act I: Found it
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Did you ever see such flowers?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Janek, come on
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Father!
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Miss Marty, may I.
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: And the next! Is that the lot?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Is that you, Gregor?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act II: Is that you, Gregor? - No, only me, only Janek
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Well? Do you hear me?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Who's that?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Buenos dÃas, Maxi
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Do you want to question me?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: The seal and the initials E.M.
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Will you tell us your real name?
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Feel my hands, Gregor
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Now I am sure that death laid his hand on me
Makropulos Affair JW 1/10~Act III: Announcement
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~One day I met a Gypsy girl
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~That black-eyed Gypsy has haunted me all the day
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Through the twilight glow-worms dance
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Already swallows are twittering overhead
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Weary work is ploughing
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Hey there, my tawny oxen
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~I've got a loose oxen
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Don't look, my oxen, so sad at my change of heart
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Welcome, my handsome one
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~God all powerful, God eternal
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~From the ripening cornfield, oh, what sweet odours creep
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Forest's shady height
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Intermezzo. Andante (piano solo)
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~See how high the sun is!
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Now, my tawny oxen, why do you stare at me?
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~What has come over me? What is it that I have done?
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Who can escape his fate, for what must be, must be
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Nothing matters now until the evening shadows fall
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~See that thieving magpie suddenly fly away!
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Now she bears my child
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Father, how wrong you were
Diary of One Who Disappeared JW V/12~Then farewell, dearest land