Karina Canellakis covers The Makropulos Case

With Věc Makropulos, principal conductor Karina Canellakis continues her Janáček cycle. Anyone who has heard previous operas by this extraordinary Czech composer under her baton knows that expectations are high.

The top of the twentieth century
Although Leoš Janáček did not really begin writing operas until around age 50, his music dramatic works are among the most important of the twentieth century. In his final period, he combined his classical experience with the influences of Moravian and Bohemian folk music and developed his extraordinary speech melody.

Sally Matthews as a lady living on for centuries
The Makropulos Affair, premiered in 1926, is Janáček's penultimate opera. The soprano Sally Matthews - who, by the way, created the title role of Unsuk Chins Alice in Wonderland in Munich - plays the central character of Emilia Marty, the four-hundred-year-old lady who keeps living on in a new guise, but now finally wants to die. The composer virtuously interweaves her compelling story with a Kafkaesque trial; that alone makes it a unique opera.