In review: from around the world: Stuttgart.(International)(The Makropulos Case)(Opera Review)

In its new Stuttgart production, unveiled on January 24, Leos Janacek's The Makropulos Case might have been retitled The Janacek Case--or should it have been The Opera of One Who Disappeared? In small letters, the program announced: "In Czech language, with German texts by Hans Neuenfels"--so instead of the usual German surtitles translating the libretto, the public was confronted with the musings of Neuenfels, director of the notorious Salzburg Cosi Fan Tutte and Die Fledermaus, about what went on in Janacek's brain while he worked on Makropulos. And in Neuenfels's opinion, Janacek's idee fixe was revenging himself on Kamilla Stosslova for his unrequited love.

To this end, we were treated throughout the performance's one hundred inter-missionless minutes to an old and somewhat dotty Janacek figure, sitting on the piano and walking about composing, while a young man in a jumpsuit--one of a gang of five, who acted as his assistants, moving the scenery and executing all sorts of acrobatics, including running on a treadmill like laboratory rats--employed a laptop to put down the composer's thoughts, which then were projected in big letters on a screen that ran the width of the stage. (A couple of innocent children were also introduced, to represent Janacek's youth.) Later on, when Janacek was meditating about his love for music and for certain composers (most of all, for Dvorak), a swan-mobile appeared, carrying Richard Wagner. In various intervews, Neuenfels left no doubt that he considers Makropulos a silly stupidity, which he simply had to treat the Neuenfels way to make it work on the stage.

At this Makropulos, even the most ardent of Nuenfels acolytes felt that ...