dramaturgy and directed by Jiří Havelka, Veronika Loulová

libretto Caterino Mazzolà
conductor Petr Šumník / Tomáš Hanák
choirmaster Lubomíra Hellová
set and light design Wariot Ideal
costumes Andrea Králová
assistant director Vojtěch Pačák
music preparation Milada Jedličková / Lucie Kaucká
stage manager Dana Krajevskaja
prompter Žofie Křížková / Marie Burianová

 

characters and cast
Titus Eduard Martyniuk / Jakub Rousek
Sextus Vojtěch Pekla, j. h.
Annius Anastasia Martyniuk / Eliška Zajícová, as a guest
Publius Jiří Přibyl / David Szendiuch
Vitellia Radoslava Müller / Barbora Řeřichová
Servilia Helena Beránková / Roxane Choux, as a guest 

first premiere 19 May 2023, second premiere 20 May 2023 within the Flora Theatre Festival

The new artistic director of the Opera and Operetta at Moravské divadlo Olomouc, Veronika Loulová, at 27 years old, is the youngest director of an opera house in Europe. This year she was included by Forbes magazine in the „30 under 30“ list of thirty young Czech talents across all disciplines.

She studied an unconventional combination: opera directing at HAMU academy and alternative theatre directing at DAMU academy. She founded and leads the platform RUN OPERUN, a 30-member artistic ensemble that aims to bring opera to a wider audience. She has directed and coordinated dozens of projects, including Případ Figaro/The Case of Figaro, Operní orloj /The Opera Clock, The Operatic Enema, La Traviata at Stalin’s and others. With the director Jiří Havelka (click on SMOKEOUT), she staged the opera The Butcher Story, which was created at the occasion of the end of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council in 2022.

 

The director, author, actor and host Jiří Havelka (1980) is one of the most versatile personalities of the Czech cultural space. In 2003 he graduated in directing from KALD DAMU academy, which he then led from 2011 to 2019.Since his early production attempts, he has focused mainly on collective improvisation as a method of creating original authorial statements. He focuses on the possibilities of theatrical space-time in its entirety. His work is based on stage illusion, emphasising the uniqueness of theatre as a tool of direct communication and combining the principles of drama, alternative and often movement theatre.

He started at Studio Ypsilon and has worked as a guest artist at many leading local (Dejvické divadlo, HaDivadlo, Divadlo Na zábradlí) and Slovak stages (Slovak National Theatre, Slovenské komorné divadlo Martin).

In recent years, he has attracted attention primarily with his productions of The Mouse Paradise Experiment (2016) and the adaptation of Medek's play Colonel Švec (2018).In particular, he has attracted attention with the performances of his original texts Gajdos Go to Heaven (2020) and Smokeout (2022), both at Divadlo Husa na provázku, in which he treats sensitive social issues with a certain amount of irony and exaggeration.

He has also established himself as a film director: his adaptation of the original theatre text Owners received a record 12 nominations for the Czech Lion Awards, of which Jiří Havelka won the Best Screenplay category, for which he also won the Czech Film Critics' Award.

Divadelní Flora has been reflecting Havelka's work for a long time: in addition to the titles of his home theatre Vosto5, it offered a directorial profile of him (in 2015). In subsequent years, the festival's attention has not missed the successful collaboration with the Slovak National Theatre Elites (2017) or the politically engaged theatrical experiment The Murder of Gonzago (2017), which Havelka staged with the ensemble of Dejvické divadlo.

 

Moravské divadlo Olomouc (MDO) is one of the oldest theatre buildings in the country (opened in 1830). It has three ensembles – opera/operetta, ballet and drama (with Roman Vencl as artistic director since 2016). Jan Fousek, a teacher and former soloist of the National Theatre in Brno, will take over the ballet section from Michal Štípa in the upcoming season. Veronika Loulová, the founder of the opera association RUN OPERUN, was recently appointed artistic director of the opera and operetta, replacing conductor Miloslav Oswald after eleven years in the position.

In 1996, the then director of the MDO, Václav Kožušník, initiated the creation of Divadelní Flora – a project that has evolved from a regional showcase of Moravian multi-ensemble theatres into one of the most prestigious Central European festivals.

 

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Interview with director Veronika Loulová and Vilma Bořkovec, chef dramaturge of the opera ensemble
https://www.amu.cz/…nameni/3728/

Czech audio interview (ČRo Vltava – Vizitka)
https://www.mujrozhlas.cz/…ika-veronika

Interview with the director
https://www.divadelni-noviny.cz/…a-kontinuitu