Makropoulos Case Review: Ausrine Stundyte is engaging in Janáček’s exhilarating – and funny – stage show | Opera

TDirector Katie Mitchell recently announced that she will be retiring from opera after nearly 30 years. With this staging of Leos Janacek’s The Macropoulos Affair – remarkably a first at the Royal Opera – you’ll go out with a bang.

The reason Mitchell gave for her decision was misogyny, both in the field of opera and its material. I’ve covered the second event before here at Covent Garden productions, where they adapted the stories of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Handel’s Theodora to give their heroines agency. You might think that’s not something Elena Makropoulos needs: after all, Janacek’s heroine has been alive since 1585, reinventing herself in every generation – always as an opera star, always with her initials EM – so she’s seen it all, and is afraid of no one. However, Mitchell still manages to revitalize her story – this time with her predictably harsh exposé of male bad behavior and unexpected humor. It’s as if she’s pointing a middle finger at her naysayers and her dismal reputation on stage. Who knew a Katie Mitchell production could be so funny?

As the orchestra pours into the foreground, a huge smartphone screen appears over the set: Here is Emilia Marti, her current pseudonym, in her hotel room on a dating app. She passes it directly to Christa, who is “looking for something casual,” but commits murder a few hours later and obtains the recipe for the elixir of life. Christa is the fulcrum of Mitchell’s reinterpretation: she and her boyfriend Janek have turned into thieves and Marty is the mark. Vicky Mortimer’s set creates first a chic, present-day hotel, then a utilitarian backstage area, both fitted with mirror frames through which we see the characters in moments of self-reflection, literally.

As is often the case in Mitchell productions, there are at least two scenes happening simultaneously in adjacent rooms – three if you count the phone screen – and it can be all too easy to miss important details when there’s so much attention. At times, one feels a lack of static – Marty’s final monologue takes place in a part of the stage barely visible to a large portion of the audience – but the drama is convincingly acted and very well sung by a strong cast, including Heather Ingebretson as Christa, Johan Reuter as the smug Jaroslaw Bruss, Shaun Panikkar as Gregor, and Alan Aoki as Hoke Sendorff, who is reunited with his long-lost love. Really touching.

At the heart of it all is a wonderful, engaging performance from Ausrine Stundyte as Emilia Marti, bossy but not invincible. Her voice soars above the orchestra even as Jakub Hrša’s performance brings out the deep contrasts and vivid colors of Janáček’s score, in a sustained 90-minute segment. It’s a delightful evening. Perhaps the opera world will miss Mitchell more than he realizes.