# From The House of The Dead



## Edinburghtenor (May 26, 2016)

Hello to the entire forum, my first post here.

In an operatic oeuvre that can already seem thin on conventional operatic niceties, in "From the House of the Dead", Janáček goes several steps further along his path towards his vision of artistic truth, stripping the score back to the absolute essentials, paring down his musical language to its strangest, toughest, most intimate, and as it turned out, final iteration. The result can be painfully bare and raw, more so than ever before, and the total lack of sentimentality, sensationalism or pandering to an audience's need for orchestral exaltation and rapturous vocal catharsis sets him apart from virtually every other great opera composer. And to a greater degree than any "Verismo" composer, Janáček is committed to putting real characters on the operatic stage; in "From the House of the Dead" by portraying people at their lowest ebb, he creates his ultimate paean to the value and beauty of all human life, in all its difficulty, pain, humour and occasional joy. In this score, moments of softness and wonder are minute and fleeting where in his previous operas he may have offered a sonorous paragraph of beauty (if the drama called for it!) against his oft uncompromising realism. Some listeners will find it all too much to bear, with too little to sustain them, the wild collage like patch work of the score remaining steadfastly tonal but rarely ingratiating, especially in Pierre Boulez's modernist treatment of it. 

Do you agree with those who say it is his greatest opera? 

John Tyrrell has described it as "a fitting and glorious culmination of his life's work." Milan Kundera went even further, writing that "From the House of the Dead emerges alongside Berg's Wozzeck as the truest, the greatest opera of our dark century"

(I personally think it has to yield the palm to "Jenůfa" and "Věc Makropulos")


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Edinburghtenor said:


> Hello to the entire forum, my first post here.
> 
> In an operatic oeuvre that can already seem thin on conventional operatic niceties, in "From the House of the Dead", Janáček goes several steps further along his path towards his vision of artistic truth, stripping the score back to the absolute essentials, paring down his musical language to its strangest, toughest, most intimate, and as it turned out, final iteration. The result can be painfully bare and raw, more so than ever before, and the total lack of sentimentality, sensationalism or pandering to an audience's need for orchestral exaltation and rapturous vocal catharsis sets him apart from virtually every other great opera composer. And to a greater degree than any "Verismo" composer, Janáček is committed to putting real characters on the operatic stage; in "From the House of the Dead" by portraying people at their lowest ebb, he creates his ultimate paean to the value and beauty of all human life, in all its difficulty, pain, humour and occasional joy. In this score, moments of softness and wonder are minute and fleeting where in his previous operas he may have offered a sonorous paragraph of beauty (if the drama called for it!) against his oft uncompromising realism. Some listeners will find it all too much to bear, with too little to sustain them, the wild collage like patch work of the score remaining steadfastly tonal but rarely ingratiating, especially in Pierre Boulez's modernist treatment of it.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the thoughts. I am also a fan of Janacek, and I think all of his operas after Jenůfa are great. Regarding the verismo aspect, I always think that Janacek is the most verismo of them all.

_From the House of the Dead_ is a harder nut to crack. The score is unusually dense, and it is not straightforward to detect the motifs. I respect the work, but still consider either _Katya Kabanova_ or _The Cunning Little Vixen_ his best and most effective work.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

_Jenufa_ takes first place with me and I am looking so forward to seeing it again at the Met next season, but THIS time Karita Mattila, who played Jenufa years ago, will now be playing the part of her mother Kostelnicka instead. Very exciting.
Second place goes to _Katya Kabanova_.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Edinburghtenor said:


> Hello to the entire forum, my first post here.
> 
> In an operatic oeuvre that can already seem thin on conventional operatic niceties, in "From the House of the Dead", Janáček goes several steps further along his path towards his vision of artistic truth, stripping the score back to the absolute essentials, paring down his musical language to its strangest, toughest, most intimate, and as it turned out, final iteration. The result can be painfully bare and raw, more so than ever before, and the total lack of sentimentality, sensationalism or pandering to an audience's need for orchestral exaltation and rapturous vocal catharsis sets him apart from virtually every other great opera composer. And to a greater degree than any "Verismo" composer, Janáček is committed to putting real characters on the operatic stage; in "From the House of the Dead" by portraying people at their lowest ebb, he creates his ultimate paean to the value and beauty of all human life, in all its difficulty, pain, humour and occasional joy. In this score, moments of softness and wonder are minute and fleeting where in his previous operas he may have offered a sonorous paragraph of beauty (if the drama called for it!) against his oft uncompromising realism. Some listeners will find it all too much to bear, with too little to sustain them, the wild collage like patch work of the score remaining steadfastly tonal but rarely ingratiating, especially in Pierre Boulez's modernist treatment of it.
> 
> ...


Welcome to the forum and thanks for the Janáček post!
I esteem "From the House of the Dead" as a kind of cathartic 'reset' opera. It hits me rock bottom and I can start to listen anew to music. So therefore I agree with this being his 'greatest opera'.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

​
For me; this opera stands high above his other works .:tiphat:


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