From the House of the Dead in Opéra Bastille in Paris, the 21st of November, 2017

After Prague I continued in Czech atmosphere and saw one of Leoš Janáček’s most interesting operas ”From the House of the Dead” in the Opéra Bastille of Paris. Opéra Bastille is a relatively new opera house in Paris (inaugurated in 1989) and the house itself if really different from the Prague opera houses I visited during my trip. Bastille is modern by design and fits no less than 2,723 spectators.  

“From the House of the Dead” is an opera of men; the only female role is extremely small. The story is based on ”Memoires from the House of the Dead” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and it tells about life on a prison camp. The libretto of the opera is fantastic and it clearly shows the poor beginnings the men on the camp have had and how their ability to handle life has been even worse.

Also Janáček’s music is superb. This may be my biggest favourite of his operas. The conductor of the Bastille performance was Esa-Pekka Salonen and he managed to make the Orchestra of the Paris National Opera to play like a dream. I could have listened to the music forever, if the leg room in the theatre had been a bit better.

When the theme of the opera is life on a prison camp, it is clear that the setting design (Richard Peduzzi) and costume design (Caroline de Vivaise) cannot be very decorative, but both were really good. The technical devices in Bastille allowed moving the huge walls of the prison freely, which created superb effects. Though I do have to say the clatter of the chains during some intensive scenes disturbed a little bit.

There were quite a lot of singers in the opera and many of them were good, but one of them rose above others in my opinion. He was Swedish Peter Mattei in the role of Šiškov. When he told the story of his marriage, the spectator felt compassion towards the unpleasant loser; somehow he was able to express the fact that Šiškov had never learned to solve problems without violence. This is opera at its best. Even though the story is rough, the skillful libretto combined with superb music touches everybody.

 

Opéra Bastille

Interior

The performers