Janáček’s Makropulos Case will get its first manufacturing at Covent Backyard in director Katie Mitchell’s farewell to opera

Janácek: The Makropulos Case – Act 2: Heather Engebretson, Susan Bickley, Jenry Waddington, Sean Panikkar, Ausrine Stundyte – Royal Opera (Picture: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

Leoš Janáček: The Makropulos Case; Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson, Sean
Panikkar, Johan Reuter, Henry Waddington, Peter Hoare, Daniel Matoušek, Alan Oke, director Katie Mitchell, conductor Jakub Hrůša; Royal Opera, Covent Backyard
Reviewed 7 November 2025

Covent Backyard’s first Makropulos Case in an enchanting but distracting and too-complex manufacturing that’s redeemed by robust musical performances together with a mesmerising account of the title function

Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Case (Věc Makropulos) made its debut on the Royal Opera Home this week, almost a century after the opera was premiered in Brno in 1926. The manufacturing represented director Katie Mitchell‘s avowed last opera manufacturing, in addition to being Jakub Hrůša‘s second new manufacturing as music director (and his first new manufacturing of a Czech opera).

We caught the second efficiency at Covent Backyard on Friday 7 November 2025. Directed by Katie Mitchell with designs by Vicki Mortimer and Sussie Juhlen-Wallen, lighting by James Farncombe and video by Sasha Balmazi-Owen, Jakub Hrůša carried out. Ausrine Stundyte was Emilia Marty, Heather Engebretson as Krista, Sean Panikkar was Albert Gregor, Johan Reuter was Prus, Henry Waddington was Kolenaty, Peter Hoare was Vitek, Daniel Matoušek was Janek, Alan Oke was Hauk-Sendorf.

When you requested, many individuals aware of the opera would in all probability say that its largest downside was in Act One when Janáček slightly will get slowed down within the Jarndyce-v-Jarndyce-like case. It may be difficult to work out who’s whom amongst the lads (with three attorneys, two litigants plus the son of 1) and audiences want some assist. You can not assist feeling that Janáček may have completed with a determine within the opening scene like Ferrando in Verdi’s Il trovatore or Gurnemanz in Wagner’s Parsifal, each of whom summarise the plot thus far!

Janácek: The Makropulos Case – Closing scene: Austrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson – Royal Opera (Picture: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

However based on the programme guide, the most important downside for Katie Mitchell is the opera’s ending. Why does Emilia Marty (now revealed as Elina Makropulos) hand the system for everlasting (nicely 300 years) life to Krista, a younger lady whom she barely is aware of. Mitchell’s answer is so as to add an additional layer to the plot, an affair between Emilia Marty and Krista in order that Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern-like, Mitchell crafts a whole plot throughout the cracks of Janáček’s current opera. She does so by way of a tool which is by turns fascinating, distracting and irritating.

Mitchell has an avowed feminist intent within the manufacturing, the interview together with her in the programme guide is known as A Feminist Actuality Test. However it appears to me that alongside this, Mitchell has an innate mistrust of opera’s grand gestures. In Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Backyard [see my review], the manufacturing undermined each the mad scene and Edgardo’s nice last aria by including distractions elsewhere on stage. One thing comparable occurred, I perceive, in her manufacturing of Handel’s Theodora at Covent Backyard [saee Claire Seymour’s review on OperaToday.com]. In The Makropulos Case, Ausrine Stundyte delivered Emilia Marty’s last renunciation huddled in mattress to the facet of the stage surrounded by the emergency companies, her face virtually invisible.

What lifted the manufacturing was the standard of the musical efficiency. Stundyte was astonishing as Emilia Marty. Poised and trendy at first, she was by turns skittish and susceptible, all the time changeable and all the time fascinating. There was one thing edgy about her too, a way of maybe violence or having no innate look after different human life or feelings. Stundyte made her susceptible, and vulnerable to extremes. Mitchell had clearly mined the libretto, and a few Marty’s throw-away strains in regards to the variety of bastards she should have left behind and her lack of look after her younger have been actually highlighted. However no matter Marty was doing or saying, Stundyte was all the time mesmerisingly watchable. She had the vocal command for the function, but a way of class to the road and for all of the distractions, her last scene was musically astonishing.

Sean Panikkar was a chic Albert Gregor the laser focus of his line actually benefiting the music, giving it heft, while his vocal type matching his trendy look. But he was additionally vicious and violent, with this made all of the extra disturbing as a result of the manufacturing made us realise early on, nicely earlier than Emila Marty admitted it, that he was her multiple-great grandson! Johan Reuter made a robust Prus, the opposite surviving litigant within the case. Alternately fascinated and repelled by Marty, but additionally with the higher hand as a result of he has the papers she wants. Henry Waddington and Peter Hoare made a robust double act because the attorneys. And one of many virtues of the performances was the way in which Reuter, Waddington and Hoare managed to create distinctive visible and vocal characters so shortly, serving to us distinguish them.

As Janek and Krista, Daniel Matousek and Heatther Engebretson had way more stage time than the composer envisaged, however the two managed admirably in the way in which they participated in Mitchell’s further plot. Alan Oke was splendidly vivid as Depend Hauk-Sendorf. Right here confined to a wheelchair, this actually didn’t impeed him in any approach: Oke crafted a vivid character out of little or no. The supporting roles have been robust with Susan Bickley as slightly a luxuriously forged stage door lady, Jeremy White because the safety guard and Jingwen Cai because the Resort Maid.

Janácek: The Makropulos Case – Act 1: Sean Panikkar, Daniel Matousek, Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson – Royal Opera (Picture: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

The manufacturing had a weird fascination with the nitty-gritty of life. We noticed Emilia Marty’s resort toilet with folks utilizing it, together with Sean Panikkar’s Albert Gregor taking a piss (together with his again to us, fortunately), in addition to some fairly graphic intercourse each heterosexual and lesbian. And there was an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien.

Jakub Hrůša and the orchestra have been on thrilling kind, the sound lithe, vivid and very important. Hrůša saved the music shifting, but at instances had on a regular basis on the planet. The orchestral textures have been brilliantly realised with a outstanding transparency but a robust presence and vitality.