The political dimension of the performance Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher [Joan of Arc at the Stake] in the Janáček Theatre, Brno in 1969

Helena Spurná

The political dimension of the performance Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher [Joan of Arc at the Stake] in the Janáček Theatre, Brno in 1969

Vol.21,No.2(2018)

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16 January 1969 was an important day for Czechoslovakia: Jan Palach, a student at the Faculty of Arts, set himself on fire next to the statue of St. Wenceslas in Prague. The artistic scene reacted to the incident through several works. The performance of Arthur Honegger's stage oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher in Janáček Theatre in Brno was one of them. The article introduces political circumstances and artistic form of the performance, summarizing photos, materials from the legacy of the director Miloš Wasserbauer, various reflections and reviews. For the author of the article the importance of the performance lies in the fact that the Brno opera presented a work which had not been performed on the Czechoslovak stages before. The primary reason for this was the undoubted staging and interpretation demands connected with Honegger's monumental hybrid creation. The fact that Brno put Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher to their repertoire at the time of the revolutionary political changes in Czechoslovakia provided the story of Joan of Arc with an up-to-date message.

Keywords:
Arthur Honegger; Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher; Janáček theatre in Brno (1969); political context of the performance; critical reactions

Pages:
161–172

References

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