Opera

Jiří Bělohlávek got acquainted with opera already in his childhood, taking part in the National Theatre productions as a member of the Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir. He appeared for example in Jacobin, Cunning Little Vixen and Carmen. His father, an excellent amateur pianist and accompanist for a Prague amateur opera company, also influenced him greatly. He took his son to rehearsals, and he would play through various works from piano sheet music of operatic scores at home, singing all the roles and radiating contagious enthusiasm. [ 2 ]

Bělohlávek’s first experience with conducting opera was gained during his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he focused on Mozart’s operas. With students of the singing department and the orchestra of the Smetana Theatre (now State Opera Prague), he performed The Marriage of Figaro at the Disk Theatre. He already knew how to conduct the orchestra “with a feeling for the specific nature of opera performances where, instead of the need to build up the complex symphonic whole, it is necessary to have an understanding for actors’ dramatic expression and to share the responsibility for individual performances.” [ 3 ]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s he worked at the Vinohrady Theatre as a consultant, conductor of the drama orchestra and occasionally as a composer of music for some plays. He got a chance to take part in an important performance on a prestigious stage in 1977, when Václav Neumann invited him as a collaborator to the Berlin Comic Opera. They staged and performed Bedřich Smetana’s Secret. In 1978, he independently prepared Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for the same opera house.

In Bělohlávek’s whole opera career, productions of Czech operas – by Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů, Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana – are by far the most numerous. This is understandable - stages at home are more likely to perform Czech composers, while foreign opera houses prefer to invite an experienced and renowned conductor of Czech nationality to conduct a Czech work. Bělohlávek explained this clearly in an interview: “It is the same as with native speakers. When native speakers speak, you recognize immediately their discourse as natural. And it is distinctly different from a speaker who learned the language as a second language – with some admirable exceptions, of course. That’s why for Czech people, Czech music is actually the closest. It is the expression of one’s own language, one’s own feeling and understanding of music.” [ 5 ]

Bělohlávek conducted more than forty-five opera productions, and in addition he recorded the music for Otmar Mácha’s TV opera The Metamorphoses of Prometheus (1981) with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. About one quarter of the operas he conducted were presented in the form of a concert performance. Although he understood the opera as Gesamtkunstwerk, where “the music needs to be complemented by the staging and acting so that it all makes sense“ [ 6 ], concert performances enabled him to present the audience with lesser-known or forgotten works of Czech composers, e.g. Janáček’s Excursions of Mr. Brouček or Smetana’s Dalibor, thanks to a lower cost of such productions.

Bělohlávek’s lifelong affection for opera and vocal compositions in general is illustrated not only by the impressive number of performances he gave, but also by his other musical activities and recordings. In 1984, he recorded famous arias of Czech and foreign operas performed by the soprano Jana Smítková, the baritone Klement Słowioczek and the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK for the Panton label (1984). The recording features arias from Smetana’s The Secret, Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, Bizet’s Carmen and Weber’s Der Freischütz.

In 1994, Bělohlávek with PKF – Prague Philharmonia and two foremost Czech singers released two CDs with a selection of famous Mozart arias - “Vado, Ma Dove? Arias For Soprano“ with Eva Urbanová and “W. A. Mozart – Che Bella. Mozart Opera Arias“ with Dagmar Pecková. He also collaborated with both singers on several concerts in the 1990s and at the beginning of the new millennium.

Bělohlávek got involved in activities organized by Ivana Leidlová aimed at bringing the name of the opera singer Jarmila Novotná back into public awareness in the Czech Republic. Bělohlávek knew the singer and remembered her as “a generous artist who had helped him greatly in the 1980s when he’d first come to the USA”. [ 8 ] He helped willingly, both through his art and contacts. He became a member of the artistic board of the Jarmila Novotná Festival and conducted an open-air concert at Chateau Liteň entitled Homage to Jarmila Novotná in August 2014 where soloists of foremost opera houses Martina Janková, Dagmar Pecková, Adam Plachetka and Štefan Margita sang famous arias and duets, accompanied by the PKF – Prague Philharmonia.

Opery Leoše Janáčka

Considering the number of performed opera titles and the number of different productions of one single opera, Leoš Janáček is by far the champion in Bělohlávek’s career. Janáček’s operas have become well-known on stages around the world and productions of Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, The Cunning Little Vixen or The Makropulos Affair are now common. Other of his works – Destiny, From the House of the Dead or The Excursions of Mr. Brouček - are becoming more and more popular as well.

Bělohlávek began his overseas opera career by a production of Jenůfa in Seattle, USA, in the spring of 1985: “To protect Janacek’s interests in the pit, Jenkins engaged Jiri Belohlavek, a young conductor from Prague. It turned out to be a wise choice. Belohlavek made his excellent orchestra, composed of members of the Seattle Symphony, brood and soar and shimmer with dramatic sensitivity. He also gave his singers ardent support, even mouthing the strange English text in sympathy.” [ 10 ] It took him twelve years to perform this opera again, this time at the National Theatre in Prague in 1997, together with the director Josef Průdek.

It was the first of several projects that were carried out in the 1990s as part of Bělohlávek‘s supposed future position as head of the National Theatre Opera. In 1995, Bělohlávek was appointed as the artistic director of the opera of the National Theatre in Prague starting on 1 January 1998 until July 2002. However, since the Ministry of Culture had not fulfilled the promise of increasing the opera budget, Bělohlávek resigned from the post in 1997.

A great international success was the staging of Jenůfa for the Glyndebourne Festival in 2000. The production was based on the previous staging done by the director Nikolaus Lehnhoff in 1989, starring this time Amanda Roocroft in the role of Jenůfa, Anja Silja as Kostelnička, Susan Gorton as Buryjovka, Štefan Margita as Laca Klemeň and Par Lindskog as Števa. This series of twelve festival performances were an important impetus for Bělohlávek’s further engagements with prestigious opera houses around the world.

Another impressive production, closely followed by the media, appeared two years later – Janáček’s Destiny under the stage direction of Robert Wilson (National Theatre in Prague, 2002). Wilson managed to put this „unstageable“ work on stage with such an impressive result, using the means of visual arts, movement and choreography, so one of the reviewers could write in all earnest that “almost a century after its creation, the Destiny received its first successful theatre adaptation.” [ 12 ]

Bělohlávek continued to praise Wilson’s convincing direction even many years later: “I’ve seen several productions of the opera and none of them was quite satisfactory. The production we created with Robert Wilson in Prague, albeit unusual and somewhat exclusive, managed to capture the atmosphere of the score the most successfully. I cherish the memories of it.”[ 13 ]

The close of 2003 was dedicated to Káťa Kabanová. Bělohlávek conducted the opera at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in November, launching a series of Janáček productions that he conducted at this opera house over the following years. Dagmar Pecková appeared in the role of Varvara.

At the turn of 2003, Bělohlávek conducted the opera at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, where Káťa was sung by the sought-after Janáček performer, Karita Mattila, and where Bělohlávek invited his pupil Tomáš Hanus to be the assistant conductor.

The year 2004 was also devoted to Janáček. In November, Bělohlávek returned to Geneva to perform From the House of the Dead, featuring among others the Slovak bass Peter Mikuláš in the role of Gorjančikov and Štefan Margita as Filka Morozov.

December brought Bělohlávek’s debut in arguably the most famous opera house in the world - the Metropolitan Opera in New York - with Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová. Varvara was sung by Magdalena Kožená, Káťa by the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, Kabanicha by Judith Forst, Boris by Jorma Silvasti, Tichon by Chris Merritt, Kudrjaš by Raymond Very, and Dika by Vladimir Ognovenko. Jonathan Miller was the director and Robert Israel was the author of the stage design and costumes. It was premiered on 17 December to be followed by four more performances, one of which – on 25 December – was broadcast by radio stations all over the world including the Czech Radio. An internal recording of this night was made by the Metropolitan Opera.  

In 2007, Bělohlávek returned to the Metropolitan Opera to give six performances of Jenůfa in January and February. The title role was performed again by Karita Mattila, the soprano Anja Silja was Kostelnička, and the tenors Kim Begley and Jorma Silvasti were Laca and Števa respectively.

In May of the same year, Bělohlávek conducted Jenůfa again, at the Washington National Opera. Before this happened however, he together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra prepared a concert performance of what is probably Janáček’s most original opera, The Excursions of Mr. Brouček, which took place on 25 February in London. The solo parts were sung exclusively by Czech and Slovak singers. Jiří Vacík appeared as Mr. Brouček and other roles (often more than one) were sung by Peter Straka, Maria Kobielska (Haan), Lenka Šmídová, Roman Janál and Aleš Briscein. A recording of this concert was released in January 2008 on the Deutsche Grammophon label and received positive acclaim, as did the concert itself. Moreover, it was awarded by the Gramophone magazine and received the MIDEM Classical Award 2009 in its category at the Cannes International Music Fair.

In August 2008, Bělohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave a concert performance of Janáček’s Destiny at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. Štefan Margita as Živný and Amanda Roocroft as Míla starred among the international cast. The production of Káťa Kabanová, imaginatively directed by Robert Carsen, was performed on ten subsequent evenings in Teatro Real in Madrid giving the audience the chance to witness the tragic fate of a young woman driven to suicide by hypocritical society. Káťa was brilliantly portrayed by Karita Mattila, Kabanicha by the Israeli mezzo-soprano Dalia Schaechter, Boris by the Slovak tenor Miroslav Dvorský and Dikoj by Oleg Bryjak. A live recording of the performance was released in 2010 on DVD and Blue-ray on the FRA Musica label.

Bělohlávek staged The Makropulos Affair in 2010 for the first time, at Opera San Fransisco, where this work of Janáček had had its American premiere in 1966. The staging was co-produced by the Finnish National Opera and it starred Karita Mattila as Emilia Marty and Miro Dvorský as Albert Gregor. Olivier Tambosi was the director. This was another instance of collaboration between Bělohlávek and Karita Mattila and it was she who requested this conductor for the production. Bělohlávek and Mattila followed up on their Janáček collaboration two years later (2012) when The Makropulos Affair was staged at the MET, directed by Elijah Moshinsky. Bělohlávek and Mattila’s immediate professional understanding transformed soon into genuine friendship and gave rise to many successful later projects together. In the media, they would show deep respect and admiration for one another. When speaking for The Wall Street Journal about The Makropulos Affair at the Metropolitan Opera, Mattila said:

“‘This is a gift from heaven,’ Ms. Mattila said with characteristic overstatement, referring to Mr. Belohlávek's presence in the pit. ‘He understands this music; it's in his native language. Uta Hagen writes that the director is the actor's main support. We singers are so lucky that in the best situation we have two support vessels: the conductor and the director, especially if they work well together. And that's also called heaven—having two wonderful guides.’”  [ 21 ]

Bělohlávek crowned his career of staging Janáček’s operas in April 2016 when together with the Czech Philharmonic he gave concert performances of Jenůfa – on 15 April at the Rudolfinum, and three days later, on 18 April, at the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London.

One of the stars of this performance was again Karita Mattila, but this time not in the role of Jenůfa, but of Kostelnička, which she performed for the first time in her career. Jenůfa was performed by the soloist of the Slovak National Theatre Adriana Kohútková, and Jaroslav Březina and Aleš Briscein appeared in the roles of Števa and Laca. The concert was broadcast live from London by the BBC and received great acclaim from audiences and music critics, with five-star reviews in the UK’s leading newspapers The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian.

In June 2016, Bělohlávek conducted a number of performances of Jenůfa at Opera San Francisco, featuring the Swedish soprano Malin Byström as Jenůfa and Karita Mattila as Kostelnička. At the instigation of his friend Alexander Goldscheider, Bělohlávek kept a diary during the time when he was rehearsing and performing the opera. A transcription San Francisco Diary is available at KlasikaPlus.cz.

The last of Janáček’s operas conducted by Bělohlávek was The Makropulos Affair. On 19 August 2016, he conducted it at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms in a concert performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Karita Mattila and Czech singers. Considering the opera’s subject and message, it was a symbolic farewell indeed, as stated in a review by Anne Ozorio:

Leading such a rich and fulfilling life as he did, Jiří Bělohlávek affirmed this message absolutely.

Operas by Bohuslav Martinů

Bělohlávek’s mission to propagate Bohuslav Martinů’s operas started in 1982 when he got an offer from Supraphon to record The Miracles of Mary with the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, where he was the chief conductor at the time: “It was a chance and a challenge for me that I accepted enthusiastically and took up with verve. Already then, when studying the composition for the first time, I literally fell in love with it for its peculiar beauty, unyielding nature and most importantly its stylistic diversity and the magnificent power of its musical language to create characters, that are all present in the score.” [ 43 ]

He therefore included the opera in the plan for the 1982/1983 season and prepared a concert performance of it with the orchestra in December 1982. The vocal cast included soloists Eva Děpoltová, Anna Bárová, Václav Zítek, Ivan Kusnjer and others. Choral parts were performed by the Czechoslovak Radio Choir and Bambini di Praga children’s choir. A recording of the work was then released on a Supraphon LP in 1985 (reissued on a CD in 1993). Working on The Miracles of Mary, however, was not Bělohlávek’s first experience with Martinů’s vocal works, he had previously recorded the oratorio Epic of Gilgamesh with the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, also for Supraphon (1976, reissued in 2007).

Bělohlávek’s debut in Czech opera houses was in 1984 when he conducted a State Opera production of Martinů’s Greek Passion. The director Václav Kašlík and the stage designer Zbyněk Kolář drew from their own expressive staging of the opera in 1967 when two intersecting diagonals dominated the stage, and they enriched it by more ideas and techniques that underlined the dramatical nature of the stage. The role of Katerina was performed by Naděžda Kniplová, that of Manolios by Miroslav Švejda, Fotis, the merciful priest, was sung by Jaroslav Souček, and the imperious priest Grigoris by Dalibor Jedlička.

Bělohlávek’s first performance of an opera by Martinů outside of Prague was The Miracles of Mary at the Janáček Theatre in Brno. The production was directed by Alena Dopitová-Vaňáková, choreographed by Daniel Wiesner and the set and remarkable costumes were designed by Jan Vančura. It was well received, and reviewers also praised the fact that such a long-silenced opera which was almost unknown to the general public was presented.

Bělohlávek conducted another production of Martinů’s opera in the late 1990s. In January 1998, he took part in the week-long Martinů: Out of Exile festival, organized by the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and prepared a concert performance of The Greek Passion.

In 2006, Bělohlávek collaborated on two opera productions. In February, it was Juliette ou la Clé des songes at Opéra Bastille in Paris. For this production, the original French text written by Martinů, reconstructed by the French musicologist Harry Halbreich, was used for the first time. The premiere took place on Friday 3 February 2006 and it featured Elena Semenova (Juliette) and John Graham Hall (Michel) in the lead roles. Although the director’s and stage designer’s approach did not conform closely to Martinů's concept, which blurs the line between dream and reality deliberately, the musical component of the opera found a sensitive conductor in Bělohlávek.

And yet another Martinů came in April, this time The Greek Passion at the National Theatre, Prague, reappearing on the stage after more than twenty years, and what is interesting - under the baton of the same conductor as in 1984.

Bělohlávek introduced Martinů’s Juliette also to the English audience, while being the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. On 27 March 2009, a concert performance of the opera at the Barbican was recorded by BBC Radio 3 and broadcast on 31 March in the UK and on 6 April by the Czech Radio (Vltava). The role of Juliette was sung by Magdalena Kožená and that of Michel by William Burden. Other roles were performed by Roderick Williams, Anna Stéphany, Rosalind Plowright and Zdeněk Plech, among others. The performance was very well received in England, and the reviewers did not spare words of praise especially for Jiří Bělohlávek and Magdalena Kožená. The extraordinary impression the concert made is testified by the fact that in 2010 the BBC SO received the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award in the opera and musical theatre category for it. It became the first orchestra ever to be awarded in this category.

In the autumn of the same year, Bělohlávek staged The Miracles of Mary at the National Theatre. The production was directed by Jiří Heřman and the stage was designed by Pavel Svoboda. The premiere took place on 29 October 2009. In addition to soloists such as Maria Kobielska, Alžběta Poláčková, Dana Burešová, Pavla Vykopalová and the male leads Svatopluk Sem and Martin Bárta, the production featured the National Theatre Opera Choir, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir, the National Theatre Ballet members and other dancers.

In 2012 Bělohlávek took part in a production of Juliette at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. The opera set was taken over from the Paris production of 2002 (Opéra Garnier) and 2006 (Opéra Bastille). It starred Nataliya Kovalova as Juliette and Steve Davislim as Michel.

Bělohlávek said goodbye to Martinů’s stage works when in December 2004 he and the Czech Philharmonic gave a concert performance of Bohuslav Martinů’s one-act opera What Men Live By. The opera was composed by Bohuslav Martinů at the turn of 1951/1952 and was based on an English translation of Leo Tolstoy’s short story entitled Where there is love, there is God (1885). The work was staged in the original English version and the singing roles were performed by Ivan Kusnjer, Petr Svoboda, Jan Martiník, Lucie Silkenová, Ester Pavlů and the chamber choir Martinů Voices. In the role of the narrator appeared Josef Špaček, the orchestra’s concertmaster. The production was nominated for The International Opera Award. The concert performance was recorded, and the opera was released in its world premiere on the Supraphon label in October 2018 (together with Martinů’s Symphony No.1). The recording was awarded in the 2018 Anděl - Czech Music Awards, in the Classical music category.

Operas by Bedřich Smetana

Bělohlávek staged four operas by Smetana. His very first production was that of The Secret at the Berlin Comic Opera in 1977, where he was invited as the assistant to Václav Neumann. The production was a great success, which was why he was asked to independently stage Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress two years later. Bělohlávek’s second encounter with the world of Smetana’s operatic works was at the National Theatre in Prague where he staged Smetana’s Devil’s Wall in 2001. Bělohlávek invited his student Tomáš Hanus to collaborate on this production as a conductor, and David Pountney, a foremost British opera director, was the director of the production.

Bělohlávek waited until 2008 to conduct another of Smetana’s operaa, this time he conducted The Bartered Bridestaged by the Belgian director Gilbert Deflo at the historic Opéra national de Paris. This opera, the most classic of all Czech operas, returned to Paris after long eighty years. The premiere took place on 11 October 2008 at the Palais Garnier, a majestic neoclassical building. The international cast consisted of Aleš Bricein (Jeník) from the Czech Republic, Christiane Oelze (Mařenka) and Franz Hawlata (Kecal) from Germany, and a young bass from Slovakia Štefan Kocán (Mícha). Although it was not easy at first for the orchestra of the Paris opera house to grasp Smetana’s music, as Bělohlávek pointed out, they managed to achieve a satisfactory result in the end, acclaimed by critics. However, it reaimed a disappointment for Bělohlávek: “When I was working on The Bartered Bride at the Paris opera, I could feel that the orchestra totally underrated Smetana’s music. They had the impression that it was no great music, rather a farce, and they were not willing to elaborate it more deeply to give the score life. The whole production was a great disappointment for me.” [ 51 ]

Bělohlávek returned to The Bartered Bride nearly three years later. Within his conception of giving concert performances of operas, he performed it with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Czech and Slovak soloists in May 2011 at London’s Barbican. The concert was recorded and released in 2012 on the Harmonia Mundi label.

The last of Smetana’s operas staged by Bělohlávek was Dalibor. It was his great wish to stage this opera at the Metropolitan Opera, as he considered it “one of Smetana’s best operas. It is full of drama, filled to the brim with fabulous music which could stand on its own without any sophisticated staging. And the musical form is so convincing that I never hesitated and always supported the work and its significance.” [ 61 ]

Unfortunately, this dream of his would never come to pass. However, his superb recording of the opera performed in a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, released in 2015 on the Onyx label, will preserve his interpretation of the opera for future generations.

Operas by Antonín Dvořák

“Rusalka is a deeply felt work and its power is in its truthfulness. It does not pretend anything, it does not stylize itself in any way, it is music of the heart. It touches on all aspects of human nature - love, desire, passion, betrayal, revenge, death, forgiveness and sacrifice - in an arch so stunning and natural that it takes one’s breath away...” — Jiří Bělohlávek

The only of Dvořák’s operas that Bělohlávek staged for four opera houses abroad and one at home was Rusalka. The very first of these productions was in Prague in 1998. It was a National Theatre production directed by Alena Vaňáková. According to many critical voices at the time, this production was a step backwards and did not bring anything new to the understanding of the work. “Of the originally planned production team Jiří Bělohlávek - Petr Weigl - Josef Svoboda, only the conductor remained (due to the allegedly high financial demands of the director and the stage designer), which saved at least the musical dimension of the production.” [ 64 ]

Seven years later, in September 2005, Jiří Bělohlávek staged Rusalka at the Opéra Bastille in Paris with Olga Guryakova as Rusalka and Stuart Skelton as the Prince. The staging was based on Robert Carsen’s visually spectacular 2002 production.

The year 2009 brought two productions of Rusalka. In March, it was the performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Renée Fleming as Rusalka and the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antoņenko as the Prince. And then in the summer, Bělohlávek revisited the Glyndebourne Festival and staged Rusalka together with the English stage director Melly Still, collaborating with the set and costume designer Rae Smith. Rusalka was sung by Ana María Martínez, the Prince by Brandon Jovanovich and Ježibaba by Larissa Diadkova. A live recording was released on CD in 2010.

In 2012 in London, Bělohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave a concert performance of The Jacobin. The singing cast was almost only Czech and Slovak, featuring Dana Burešová as Julie, Svatopluk Sem as Bohuš, and Aleš Voráček as Jiří. Other roles were performed by Jaroslav Březina, Lucie Fišer Silkenová, Aleš Jenis, Jozef Benci and Jan Martiník.

Bělohlávek’s last Rusalka was at the State Opera in Vienna in January and February 2014, under the stage direction of Sven-Erik Bechtolf. It was a debut for Bělohlávek at this famous opera house. From among Czech conductors, only Václav Neumann had conducted this opera here, it was in 1987. As fate would have it, both conductors were at a similar stage in their lives and careers: “Fate sometimes repeats itself in a funny way, I also have the honour of leading the Czech Philharmonic, I am the same age as Václav Neumann was then, and this is the first time I have worked with this renowned house, so I feel in good company.” [ 82 ]

The production featured, among others, the Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as Rusalka, Michael Schade as the Prince, Günther Groissböck as Vodník and Janina Baechle as Ježibaba.

Operas by foreign composers

Of the operas by foreign composers, Jiří Bělohlávek staged, in addition to the above-mentioned The Rake’s Progress by Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georges Bizet, Richard Wagner and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Bělohlávek got his first experience conducting Mozart’s operas already during his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. With students of the singing department and the orchestra of the Smetana Theatre (now State Opera Prague), he performed The Marriage of Figaro. He performed only one Mozart opera on a professional stage, Così fan tutte, directed by Michael Sturm, with the National Theatre in Prague ensemble. The premiere took place in June 1998 at the Estates Theatre. He performed Mozart’s opera also with the PKF – Prague Philharmonia when in 2006 he conducted two concert performances of Così fan tutte within the celebrations of the 250^th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth. On 26 November, they performed it at the Rudolfinum and on 2 December at the Palau de la Música in Valencia. The singing parts were performed by the Prague Chamber Choir with Pavel Vaněk as the chorus-master, and soloists Martina Zadro (Fiordiligi), Jana Štefáčková (Dorabella), Radka Sehnoutková (Despina), Tomáš Kořínek (Ferrando), Roman Janál (Guglielmo) and Dali Mor (Don Alfonso).

At the National Theatre, Bělohlávek staged also Bizet’s Carmen. The production, directed by Jozef Bednárik and featuring Dagmar Pecková as Carmen had its premiere in 1999. More than forty years after he sang in this opera with the Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir, Bělohlávek could revisit it, this time from a different place, the orchestra pit.

“I remember to this day how completely paralyzed and enchanted I was when I first stood on the stage of the then Smetana Theatre, aged ten or twelve. We were singing in Bizet’s Carmen. And when, at the end of the fourth act, the whole ensemble started thundering, it was a tremendous experience.” [ 86 ]

In 2003, Bělohlávek conducted at the Glyndebourne Festival, this time Wagner’s monumental Tristan und Isolde, directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. It was a Wagnerian premiere, both for Bělohlávek and for the festival. The ten performances were received enthusiastically, so it was decided to renew the production in 2007 with almost an identical cast, including the conductor and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. These productions were captured on camera by the Opus Arte recording team and a live recording of the performance was released on a DVD the following year.

Bělohlávek was supposed to conduct Tristan und Isolde also in January and February 2013 at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, with Marek Šedivý as the assistant conductor. Due to health problems, however, he could not take part.

The last non-Czech opera composer whose work Bělohlávek conducted at famous opera houses in the world was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In 2008, he staged Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, featuring the Russian soprano Hibla Gerzmava as Tatiana and the Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as Eugene. Olga was performed by Ekaterina Semenchuk and Lenski by Piotr Beczala. Bělohlávek performed Eugene Onegin also less than a year later, in January and February 2009, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The production was directed by Robert Carsen, with Onegin performed by the American baritone Thomas Hampson and Tatiana by the soprano Karita Mattila.

Bělohlávek’s second opera production of Tchaikovsky was The Queen of Spades, directed again by Robert Carsen. The premiere took place on 6 April 2014 at the Zurich Opera House.