Janáček's opera of a singer who has lived for three centuries received its first Royal Opera staging, directed by Katie Mitchell and conducted by Jakub Hrůša.
The Royal Opera gave its first staging of Janáček’s The Makropulos Case at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Tuesday 4 November to Friday 21 November 2025. Katie Mitchell directed and Jakub Hrůša conducted.
Janáček saw Karel Čapek’s play in Prague in December 1922 and wrote the opera between 1923 and 1925. Its heroine, Emilia Marty, is a celebrated singer who has lived for more than 300 years on an elixir of immortality.
The opera reached the stage in Brno on 18 December 1926. Its score sets speech melody, the pitch and rhythm of spoken Czech turned into vocal line. It found its wider following through a 1964 Sadler’s Wells production in London.
Mitchell, whose earlier work for the house includes Theodora and Lucia di Lammermoor, set it in the present day. Vicki Mortimer’s designs were built from reused and recycled material.
Hrůša, the house’s Music Director, conducted the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
Ausrine Stundyte returned to the house as Marty, with Sean Panikkar as Albert Gregor, Johan Reuter as Baron Prus and Henry Waddington as the lawyer Dr Kolenatý.