05-05-2025
The Excursions of Mr Broucek review — Rattle wrestles Janacek into submission
In 1908 Leos Janacek embarked on an operatic adaptation of a story about a beer and sausage-guzzling landlord who, while on a bender, takes a trip to the moon. What, you wonder, must have Janacek been thinking — or drinking. It took seven librettists and more than a decade to knock The Excursions of Mr Broucek into shape, by which time the opera had acquired a second part about a trip he takes back to 15th-century Prague during a national uprising.
The opera is rarely staged — indeed it seems almost unstageable — but is also in need of some visual aids. Nine of the ten roles are not only doubled but tripled, as the same characters appear in different guises in Broucek's fever dream.
