Admin

Organization

Conductor

Jiří Rožeň

Singer

Mezzo-soprano

Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir

Amando

Soprano

Tereza Štěpánková

Amanda

Tenor

Aleksander Kravets

Piet the Pot

Baritone

Nathan Berg

Nekrotzar

Bass

Miloš Horák

Astramadors

Andrea Tögel Kalivodová

Mescalina

Hagen Matzeit

Furst Go-Go

Eir Inderhaug

Venus

Spoken

Jiří Hájek

The Black Minister

Josef Moravec

The White Minister

Chef der Gepopo

Andrey Styrkul

Secret policewoman

Dalibor Pavelka

Michael Skalický

Ruffiak

Libor Novák

Pavel Borek

Schabernak

Tomáš Bartůněk

Stage director

Nigel Lowery

Richard Hein

Lighting designer

Lothar Baumgarten

Costume designer

Set designer

Video designer

Thilo David Heins

Dramaturge

Ondřej Hučín

Chorus master

Adolf Melichar

National Theatre Prague

Others

The State Opera Chorus

Orchestra

State Opera Orchestra

German

Le Grand Macabre

Prague

Czech Republic

Národní divadlo (National Theatre)

Public

English

Approved

Le Grand Macabre Ligeti

Loosely based on the Belgian avant-garde dramatist Michel de Ghelderode’s play La balade du grand macabre, Ligeti provocatively branded his adaptation “anti-anti-opera”. Le Grand Macabre presents an extremely bizarre apocalyptic vision of a world gone mad, teeming with characters of such telling names as Nekrotzar, Piet The Pot, Clitoria, Spermando.

Ligeti’s spectacular operatic fresco, set in a fictitious city bearing an equally telling name, Breughelland, not only shocks by featuring harsh, spine-chilling and perverse images, it is also striking in terms of the score, with the musical idiom encompassing conventional instruments, but also giving scope to a large variety of unprecedented sounds, produced by car-horns, electric doorbells, a sledgehammer, an alarm clock, paper bags, a tray full of crockery, a saucepan, a pistol and other items.

Le Grand Macabre had its world premiere in Stockholm in 1978. Later on, Ligeti made considerable revisions to his piece in preparation for a production at the Salzburger Festspiele in 1997. The second version of the “anti-anti-opera” will be staged in Prague by the versatile British director and designer Nigel Lowery. The music will be explored by the conductor Jiří Rožeň, a young Czech rising star.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble