We’re off to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden on this week’s Sunday Opera (7/19 3:00 p.m.) and their 2025 production of Leos Janacek’s “The Makropulos Affair” or “The Makropulos Case” or “The Makropulos Case,” or “The Makropulos Thing” (a direct translation from the play by Karel Capek on which it is based). It was composed between 1923 and 1925 and had its world premiere at the National Theatre in Brno in 1926.
The opera focuses on a mysterious 337-year-old opera singer, Emilia Marty (Ausrine Stundyte). who consumed a life-extending elixir as a teen, she seeks the formula's recipe hidden in an old inheritance dispute.
The aristocratic Prus family and the Gregor family have been locked in a bitter probate battle for nearly a hundred years. It stems from the 1827 death of Baron Joseph Ferdinand Prus, Marty’s lover, who died intestate and left no legitimate heirs.
Emilia Marty, an enigmatic and glamorous singer, unexpectedly takes an intense interest in the Gregor vs. Prus case. She possesses an unnerving, intimate knowledge of historical figures, events, and family lines dating back centuries.
It is ultimately revealed that Emilia Marty is actually Elina Makropulos. She was born in 1585 in Crete as the daughter of the court. Her father developed an elixir of youth and tested it on her, making her biologically immortal. She has spent the last 300 years living under various aliases (always with the initials "E.M.") and gave birth to a child with Baron Prus, sparking the inheritance conflict.
Now aged 337, the effects of the potion are wearing off, and she desperately seeks the original Greek manuscript of the formula to maintain her youth. After going to extreme lengths to secure the formula, she comes to a harsh philosophical realization: living indefinitely has left her cold, unfeeling, and exhausted by the repetition of life. Realizing that mortality is what gives life its desire, love, and meaning, she burns the formula and peacefully passes away.
Joining Stundyte in this company are Sean Panikkar as Albert Gregor, Johan Reuter as Baron Jaroslav Prus, Henry Waddington as Dr. Kolenaty, Peter Hoare as Vitek, Daniel Matousek as Janek, Alan Oke as Count Hauk-Sendorf, and Heather Engebretson as Kristina. They’re joined by the Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera with Jakub Hrusa, conducting.
Stay tuned after the opera for more music by Janacek that includes a rather short three-act opera entitled “Osud” (“Fate”). Performed in English, the cast for this domestic tragedy a young couple torn apart by the madness of the woman’s mother includes Helen Field, Philip Langridge, and Kathryn Harries in the three major roles with Charles Mackarras conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Welsh National Opera.
Our final look at Janacek includes his nationalistic Czech work the Glagolitic Mass which was written in “Old Church Slavonic” through a special dispensation from the Vatican. This lovely work, performed in its original ten movement form, includes Susan Bullock, Ameral Gunson, Kim Begley, and Mathew Best with Adrian Partington on the organ and Richard Hickox conducting the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales and the Bristol Choral Society.
