On the premiere of “The Excursions of Mr. Brouček” at the Berlin State Opera

But one after the other: Brouček is a Prague owner and misanthroph – although, that may be too much said, he only cannot do lawyers and tenants who do not pay. Fortunately, there are such wonderful inventions as sausages and beer, Brouček is one of the kind of person who does not care about art and poetry, but also politics as long as only the stomach is filled. Sympathetic or repulsive, everyone may decide for themselves.

A work of the transition

The figure of the satirical writer Svatopluk Čech, who wanted to pie on the passivity of his compatriots. In 1920 Janáček took two very different stories from Čech’s novel cycle and formed this opera, his only one that was not premiered in Brno, but in Prague.

It is a work of the transition, “Katja Kabanova”, “The Smart Fückslein”, “The thing macropulos” and “from a dead house” have not yet been written, but the music is already on the way there: the bright, sudden, suddenly appearing, epiphal motives, which immediately transform themselves, the indiscriminately close connection to the Czech Due. Simon Rattle calls this sound language “rugged”.

Rattle loves this music

The Brit and ex-Philharmonic boss feels close to the culture of the country and the music of Janáček in particular, of course this also has to do with his wife Magdalena Kožená, who is Brünnerin. Rattle has already headed the four large operas by Janáček at the State Opera; Now, quasi chronologically, he has arrived at a very unknown work outside of the Brünner Kosmos. And makes his personal enthusiasm with the state chapel audible with the state chapel with a committed, lustful, detailed conduct.

“The excursions of Mr. Brouček” are also a typical Janáček opera in that the ensemble is in the foreground and there are protagonists, but they seem to work again and again in Tutti. Brouček’s center of life is the host Würfl at the foot of the Prague Castle, which alone offers director Carsen a wealth of ways of balancing hidden objects on stage.

The voice of Peter Hoare as Brouček is always fought for it, but it is not particularly striking. Two other characters stand out: The young Málinka (Lucy Crowe) and the tenor of her friend Mazal (Aleš Briscein), who danced with another, which is why Málinka dances with the aging Brouček to make Mazal jealous. Not only brisquein, most actors sing several roles, a great performance.

In his operas, Janáček loves playing with the fantastic, the confusion of space and time, and so Brouček wants to make two excursions, once spatially, namely on the moon, once in time, namely into the prag of the Middle Ages, as Emperor Sigismund, as emperor Sigismund, wants to knock down the Hussite uprising in the country. And here it gets complicated, or not, because of course both trips are only owed to beer, so dreamed. Carsen has decided to locate everything in the late 1960s, the time of the lunar landing, the hippies, but also the suppression of the Prague spring.

The first part, on the moon, succeeds fantastically for the director. Brouček meets a curious sect of moon people who only feed and are horrified by the scent of flowers about Brouček’s love. The stage wipes in a single flower power sea, incarnations by Joni Mitchell, also by Janis Joplin.

In the second part after the break, Brouček runs away before the war. Amendments Čech actually criticizes the rule of the Kuk Habsburger about Bohemia at the beginning of the 20th century, but pulls the medieval emperor Sigismund. Carsen, on the other hand, lets the Soviets open in 1968, tanks on Wenceslas Platz, Wochenschaubilder, everywhere the portrait of 20-year-old Jan Palach, who overgone and burned with petrol.

This is how you ponder: three time levels, isn’t that too much? Shouldn’t you first stage such an unknown piece “librettogue loyalty” instead of immediately missing a current dimension (whereby the Prague spring was over 50 years ago)?

Result: Carsen’s risk game pays off, he succeeds in a convincing overlay of the epochs. Seven months after the invasion, the Czech defeats the Soviet team in ice hockey, also Brouček, who had actually run it cowardly, presents his racket, turns it over – and suddenly looks like he rides on a horse. Middle Ages and 20th century merge in one picture.

Carsen is a master of such crystalline, momentary, humorous symbolic flash. Also when at the last moment when everyone celebrates in Würfl’s restaurant, a terrible tank breaks through the scenes. What can be referred to our presence in 2025.