Fate | Perform Czech

Janáček’s “waltz” opera was composed in a conscious contrast to the previous opera Jenufa/Her Stepdaughter– using all the effects of impressionism and verism. After the death of his daughter Olga the composer was looking for the theme while enchanted by a 28-year-old “Star from Luhačovice”: the theme “fresh, modern, bursting with life and elegance”. The work evidently contains autobiographical elements (Janáček’s love Kamila Urválková – character Mila Válková) but the inspiration by Eugene Onegin is obvious as well. The opera taking place at the colonnade of the Luhačovice Spa in a stifling family atmosphere and several years later in the conservatory’s auditorium, where the new opera is practiced, are connected with the question: Do you know what love is?

About the company

The National Moravian-Silesian Theatre is the biggest and oldest professional theatre in the region and at the same time the biggest cultural institution established by the statutory city of Ostrava. It is the only theatre in Moravia, which has four artistic companies – opera, drama, operetta/musical and ballet, which perform regularly 16–19 premieres per year and plays almost 500 performances on two permanent scenes – in the Antonín Dvořák Theatre and in the Jiří Myron Theatre.