The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Grange Park Opera review ★★★★★
Impressive singing by the chorus and soloists cannot rescue a difficult opera given an overblown new production
Welcome to Prague...aka Grange Park Opera. Photo: Marc Brenner
It all started out so well.
The opening bars of Leoš Janáček’s 'problem' opera, The Excursions of Mr Brouček, were being ravishingly played by the BBC Concert Orchestra under conductor George Jackson, creating the lilting, shifting, pulsating sound world, by turns romantic and heroic, that only Janáček’s musical imagination could create. Everything was alive, everything was possible.
Then, sadly, the curtains parted.
Brouček was a problem opera, even for Janáček, who spent 12 years writing it. It’s the story of Mr Brouček, a philistine, bourgeois landlord who, in drunken stupors, imagines an excursion to the Moon (which he finds, to his horror, is inhabited by avant-garde artists) and a second excursion which takes him back to 1420, when Prague was involved in a patriotic rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire.
The opera alternates Brouček’s rather tawdry daily life on earth with the world of his fantasies, much as Janáček does in his later masterpiece, The Cunning Little Vixen, which alternates the forest of the animals with the sad lives of the people in the village.
The genteel artists on the Moon. Photo: Marc Brenner
In the opening scene designer Leslie Travers fills the stage with gigantic kitsch tourist memorabilia over which is suspended an enormous, broken souvenir-of-Prague plate. It is a striking image, and the plate is a masterpiece of scenic construction but we were already in a world of fantasy, rather than the everyday, and this lack of contrast makes the first half in particular rather wearisome.
Janáček’s targets for satire are pretty feeble, the aesthetes on the Moon being so rarefied that they don’t eat; they simply smell flowers and burst into tears when Brouček is found tucking into a sausage. Director David Poutney responds by throwing the kitchen sink (and, in one scene, a toilet) onto the stage, most of it in questionable taste.
A modern sculpture is unveiled in the Temple of the Arts to reveal an enormous sausage skewered by a fork on which dolly-birds, costumed in hot pants and kneepads by Marie-Jean Lecca, are encouraged to writhe.
A ‘solemn procession’ (to quote the libretto) is turned into a parody of a Pride march, led by drag queens and same-sex couples. This was particularly difficult to watch on the same weekend that a gunman in Oslo murdered two people in a gay bar the night before their Pride march. Poutney uses his own translation of the text and rewrites lines completely when it suits him. On one occasion he introduces a rape ‘joke’, which should be cut.
A sculpture in the Temple of the Arts. Photo: Marc Brenner
The second act, fortunately, is like a different opera with a different director, and contains some thrilling choruses. All credit to Chorus Master Philip White and the heroes of the whole season, the 24 young choristers who were singing their third opera in four days. This act contains almost the one moment in the whole evening when the overly-frantic pace stops for a moment, soprano Fflur Wyn singing a ravishing lament for a father killed in battle.
Tenor Peter Hoare does an outstanding job as Brouček, playing him as a rogue who’s more lovable than he should be, his warm tenor equal to all the demands of the role. Mark Le Brocq, in a tenor part liberally sprinkled with top Cs, is heroic as Mazal, Brouček’s feckless tenant who keeps reappearing in his dream-fantasies, as troublesome people tend to.
A special mention for Robin Horgan as a performance artist on the Moon who pours paint over himself and manages to maintain his poise, despite the indignities demanded of him, and for those wonderful character singers, veterans of hundreds of productions, Andrew Shore, Clive Bayley and Adrian Thompson, playing multiple roles with the enthusiasm and energy of students just out of college.
Jackson and the BBC Concert Orchestra give the musical performance of the GPO season. But the problem opera definitely remains a problem.
The Excursions of Mr Broucek is sung in Czech with English surtitles. Further performances are on 29 June and 7 July
The opening bars of Leoš Janáček’s 'problem' opera, The Excursions of Mr Brouček, were being ravishingly played by the BBC Concert Orchestra under conductor George Jackson, creating the lilting, shifting, pulsating sound world, by turns romantic and heroic, that only Janáček’s musical imagination could create. Everything was alive, everything was possible.
Then, sadly, the curtains parted.
Brouček was a problem opera, even for Janáček, who spent 12 years writing it. It’s the story of Mr Brouček, a philistine, bourgeois landlord who, in drunken stupors, imagines an excursion to the Moon (which he finds, to his horror, is inhabited by avant-garde artists) and a second excursion which takes him back to 1420, when Prague was involved in a patriotic rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire.
The opera alternates Brouček’s rather tawdry daily life on earth with the world of his fantasies, much as Janáček does in his later masterpiece, The Cunning Little Vixen, which alternates the forest of the animals with the sad lives of the people in the village.
The genteel artists on the Moon. Photo: Marc Brenner
In the opening scene designer Leslie Travers fills the stage with gigantic kitsch tourist memorabilia over which is suspended an enormous, broken souvenir-of-Prague plate. It is a striking image, and the plate is a masterpiece of scenic construction but we were already in a world of fantasy, rather than the everyday, and this lack of contrast makes the first half in particular rather wearisome.
Janáček’s targets for satire are pretty feeble, the aesthetes on the Moon being so rarefied that they don’t eat; they simply smell flowers and burst into tears when Brouček is found tucking into a sausage. Director David Poutney responds by throwing the kitchen sink (and, in one scene, a toilet) onto the stage, most of it in questionable taste.
A modern sculpture is unveiled in the Temple of the Arts to reveal an enormous sausage skewered by a fork on which dolly-birds, costumed in hot pants and kneepads by Marie-Jean Lecca, are encouraged to writhe.
A ‘solemn procession’ (to quote the libretto) is turned into a parody of a Pride march, led by drag queens and same-sex couples. This was particularly difficult to watch on the same weekend that a gunman in Oslo murdered two people in a gay bar the night before their Pride march. Poutney uses his own translation of the text and rewrites lines completely when it suits him. On one occasion he introduces a rape ‘joke’, which should be cut.
A sculpture in the Temple of the Arts. Photo: Marc Brenner
The second act, fortunately, is like a different opera with a different director, and contains some thrilling choruses. All credit to Chorus Master Philip White and the heroes of the whole season, the 24 young choristers who were singing their third opera in four days. This act contains almost the one moment in the whole evening when the overly-frantic pace stops for a moment, soprano Fflur Wyn singing a ravishing lament for a father killed in battle.
Tenor Peter Hoare does an outstanding job as Brouček, playing him as a rogue who’s more lovable than he should be, his warm tenor equal to all the demands of the role. Mark Le Brocq, in a tenor part liberally sprinkled with top Cs, is heroic as Mazal, Brouček’s feckless tenant who keeps reappearing in his dream-fantasies, as troublesome people tend to.
A special mention for Robin Horgan as a performance artist on the Moon who pours paint over himself and manages to maintain his poise, despite the indignities demanded of him, and for those wonderful character singers, veterans of hundreds of productions, Andrew Shore, Clive Bayley and Adrian Thompson, playing multiple roles with the enthusiasm and energy of students just out of college.
Jackson and the BBC Concert Orchestra give the musical performance of the GPO season. But the problem opera definitely remains a problem.
The Excursions of Mr Broucek is sung in Czech with English surtitles. Further performances are on 29 June and 7 July
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| What | The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Grange Park Opera review |
| Where | Grange Park Opera, West Horsley Place, West Horsley,, Leatherhead, KT24 6AW | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Waterloo (underground) |
| When |
09 Jun 22 – 07 Jul 22, Running time includes long dinner interval |
| Price | £80-£195 including voluntary donation of £40-£80 |
| Website | Click here for more information and booking |