Opera in two parts (four acts)
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes without interval
Music: Leoš Janáček (Composed 1908-1917)
Libretto for Part I: Composer & others
after Svatopluk Čech
Libretto for Part II: F.S. Procházka
after Svatopluk Čech
Premiered: 23/4/1920

Catalogue Number: JW I/7


Janáček rebuffed the seriousness of the ‘artist’ represented in Janáček’s Osud with Výlety pánĕ Broučkovy, his most candidly humorous work in the operatic genre. Its cynicism and high jinx, seen through the eyes of the Prague publican, Mr Brouček, with his trips to the moon and back in time to the 15th century shares much with its non-time-travelling operatic partner Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Offenbach’s opera was a great favourite at the National Theatre in Prague, where Brouček was first performed. It was the only of Janáček’s operas to be performed first in Prague and then in Brno. It marked a huge change in acceptance of the man who fought so hard for the Prague performances of his most enduring opera Jenůfa. The first excursion to the moon is the more silly of the two, where the 15th century excursion has a more moral message for the citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic, born two years before the premiere of the opera. As John Tyrrell writes of the opera, ‘[Osud] and Brouček can together be considered experimental transition pieces, uneven as artistic wholes but of great interest, and which considerably expanded Janáček’s range through the impact of new influences (Charpentier, Puccini) and the exploration of new types of subject matter and structure’. Despite the polarity of the preposterousness and seriousness of the two parts of the opera it has been widely performed. Most recently in this country in an inventive David Pountney production (conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras) at the London Coliseum which has unfortunately not been revived since. A new edition of the score, edited by Jiří Zahrádka is soon to be published by Universal Edition.


Synopsis: based on the one produced for the 1992 ENO production

Act One

Scene One Prague 1888

Replete with his customary fifteen beers, Mr Brouček, a local landlord and drunk, attempts to find his way home to the house of which he is a proud owner. Málinka, the Sacristan’s daughter, is so desperate at the infidelities of Mazal, Mr Brouček’s bohemian tenant, that she threatens suicide, and to calm her down Mr Brouček has to agree to marry her. He soon retracts, however, and she goes off ‘up the alley’ with Mazal as normal. Finally it is all too much for Mr Brouček and he seeks a saner existence on the moon.

Scene Two

It turns out, however, that the moon has been colonised by creatures from Mr Brouček’s worst nightmare: the artistic and intellectual avant-garde. Mr Brouček lands in the home of the lunar artist Blankytný (who bears a strange resemblance to Mazal). He describes his life-long platonic passion for a lunar maiden, Etherea.

Scene Three

Etherea is an independent-minded prewoman, and arrives with her ‘politically correct sorority’ as a backing group to perform an ‘ode most modish and organic’. However, when she glimpses the unlikely figure of Mr Brouček she is gripped with a transfiguring passion for him, and carries him off, causing her admirer, Blankytný, and her father much bewilderment and distress.

Scene Four

In the temple of the lunar arts, the Patron instructs his composers. When Etherea arrives with Mr Brouček, the artists scatter in terror, but soon he is accepted as the ‘latest thing’. He is accordingly subjected to increasingly rarefied examples of contemporary arts, and finds a lunar lunch of sniffing flowers decidedly tasteless. Etherea abandons all her previous convictions in a desperate attempt to win his favour, but when is attacked for eating ‘chopped up pigs’ meat’ (one of Mr Würfl’s best sausages) he makes his escape, leaving the artists singing hymns of praise to their sponsor.

Scene Five

Back in Prague, Mazal and Málinka return home as the dawn is breaking. The potboy tells them that Mr Brouček has been found ‘completely blotto’.


Act Two

Scene One

Demons from the past seem to threaten Mr Brouček, perhaps because he has been arguing with his fellow drinkers about the underground tunnels that medieval Emperors were said to have constructed under Prague. On setting off for home, Mr Brouček unaccountably finds himself in such a tunnel where he encounters strange figures from the increasingly distant past.

Scene Two

At this point the Author intervenes to lament the declining character of his nation. Once tey were heroes, now they are greedy swine, like Mr Brouček for instance. The Author longs to write ‘anthems for a resurgent nation’, not just satires ‘like all this…’

Scene Three

‘All this’ turns out to be Mr Brouček finding himself in 15th century Prague which, as a result of the heroic rebellion led by Jan Hus, is under siege from the German armies of the Holy Roman Empire. Mr Brouček is initially taken for a German spy because of his dreadful Czech, peppered with German expressions, but manages to bluff his way out of this, and is admitted to the house of Domšík (the Sacristan) and introduced to his daughter Kunka, and their friends. Meanwhile the people sing battle hymns in preparation for the coming conflict. Mr Brouček is reluctantly kitted out in appropriate medieval attire, but shows no enthusiasm at all when it is made clear he is expected to join in the defence of Prague. Once in the battle, he seizes the first chance to run away, but is spotted by Kedruta, who swears that he will hand for his cowardice.

Scene Four

The people celebrate their victory, but it has been bought at a price: Kunka’s father Domšík is one of the dead. Mr Brouček is discovered in hiding, and is accused of treachery. His sentence is appropriate: death in a beer barrel.

Scene Five

The landlord of the inn hears a strange groaning from his cellar. He discovers Mr Brouček inside a barrel. Mr Brouček seems very relieved to be safely home at last, but confides to the landlord that he ‘liberated Prague single-handed’.



Bibliography:
Tyrrell, John: ‘Mr Brouček at Home: An epilogue to Janáček’s opera’ in The musical times, United Kingdom Vol. CXX/1631 (January 1979) 30-33

Tyrrell, John: Czech Opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)

Tyrrell, John: Janáček’s Operas: A Documentary Account (London: Faber, 1992)

Cheek, Timothy
Singing in Czech: A Guide to Czech Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2001)

Editions:
Universal Edition (Vocal Score only)
Forthcoming new edition of the opera from Universal Edition. It will be edited by Jiří Zahrádka, who edited the recent new edition of Janáček’s Šárka.

Recordings:
Přibyl, Švejda, Jonášová, Maršík, Novák, Czech Philharmonic Ch and Orch: Jílek (Supraphon 112153-2)