The Makropulos Affair
Welsh National Opera, Cardiff Bay
 

WELSH National Opera kicked off its autumn season with a distinctly underwhelming production of Leos Janacek’s The Makropulos Affair.

Based on a play of the same name by Karel Capek, the story centres on 337-year-old Emilia Marty — sung by Angeles Gulin.

Marty’s father tested a potion on her 300 years before and it worked — causing her longevity.

We first meet Marty when she arrives in a solicitor’s office to help solve a 100-year-old legal wrangle over a property inheritance.

Her real intention is to retrieve the formula for the potion which was kept with the Will of a former lover, to whom she entrusted her secret.

It would have been a lot simpler if she had just kept a copy of the concoction’s ingredients.

Capek was sceptical that his play would work as an opera as he thought the story was unpoetical and over garrulous.

He was a wise man. One of the many problems with this production is that the many characters are awful people.

The audience is not given any opportunity to sympathise with, or understand the characters on stage.

Alexander Sprague’s character Janek commits suicide to relative unconcern from his father, girlfriend and Marty - who he has fallen for.

That is not to say that the music, singing and sets are not splendid.

But in suspending our disbelief to invest our emotions in an opera about strange doings, we expect something to invest in.

Until December 2 2022. Box office: 029 2063 5000, wno.org.uk/whats-on