The Jacobin as a school of life

At the beginning of October, one of the most popular Czech operas returned to the stage of the National Theatre in Prague after 11 years. The premiere was expected with excitement which has been recently connected with each new staging of Czech classic opera.

Recently, there have been amateur as well as professional discussions about the way of staging Czech operas, especially works by their leading representatives – Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák. Works like The Bartered Bride, Rusalka,  the Kiss or the Jacobin live their own live in memories of older viewers, the staging tradition is deeply rooted here and any attempt for innovation is accepted with great emotions. Topics from the life of Czech countryside or Czech history are the most frequent ones in 19^th century Czech opera literature and they were staged in a stage realism manner until the early 1990s. This style is becoming hard to accept for the contemporary generation of producers and viewers and a problem arises: how do we transform the works to the stage in a form which would draw attention of fans of modern staging manners and would not repel and outrage the conservatives?

A new staging of The Jacobin was directed by the head of opera in the National Theatre Jiří Heřman as a last work in his position. Heřman is famous for his specific stage poetics based on symbols far from descriptive realism. It is a story about a son of a count who returns from revolutionary France with his wife and children and has a reputation of a Jacobin and about reconciliation with his old father. Heřman brought it on the stage with traditional interpretation of characters and their relationships; he does not violently update the story or environment, yet it is not obsolete – it is playful, full of life and frolicking. Heřman has chosen a school scene from the second act of the opera as the key one for his staging vision. A village teacher and regenschori Benda (a great singing and acting opportunity for tenors who have grown out the first field) is a main character here with his goodness the good ones need for their luck, yet it prevents the plotters from succeeding in their tricks. Stage designer Pavel Svoboda created a stage with many wooden chairs with various sizes which correspond with social statuses of characters – the smallest chairs for children, the middle-sized ones for villagers, the big ones for the burgraver and the biggest one for the count. Costumes designed by Alexandra Grusková respect contemporary fashion and light designer Daniel Tesař, one of key Heřman's colleagues, participated in this staging as well.

The management of the opera probably counts with longer lifespan and this may be the reason why almost all the roles have three alternations of soloists. The character of Bohuš, the alleged Jacobin, played by Svatopluk Sem and Jakub Kettner draw attention with their performance as well as Vladimír Doležal and Jan Markvart playing Benda, Alžběta Poláčková as Benda's daughter Terinka, Luděk Vele as burgraver Filip who wants Terinka and Aleš Briscein and Jaroslav Březina as Terinka's lover Jiří. The choir of the National Theatre well prepared by Pavel Vaněk has a great chance to demonstrate its qualities. The members of Kühn's Children Choir (with choirmaster Jiří Chvála) play and sing their roles perfectly. The author of very energic music interpretation that corresponds with the spirit of the performance is the chief conductor of the National Theatre orchestra Tomáš Netopil.

The staging showed one of possible ways we can choose when staging a traditional Czech opera. It is a good compromise between the so-called traditional and the so-called modern and has a great potential to address the widest spectre of the audience.

Barbora Dolejšová