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ArtsTwo-year international project “revisits” great Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů
Marking five decades since the death of the great Czech composer Bohuslav
Martinů in 1959, a major international project entitled Martinů Revisited
was officially launched on Thursday night with a concert at Prague’s
Rudolfinum. It features scores of events, both in the Czech Republic and
further afield, and will run for exactly two years, until December 12,
2010.
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ArtsNew opera brings show trial of Milada Horáková to the stage
Coming up in this week’s Arts – a new opera that’s just premiered in
Prague based on Communist Czechoslovakia's most notorious show trial. On
June 27th, 1950 Milada Horáková - a democratic MP and campaigner for
women's rights - was hanged on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage,
despite appeals for clemency from world figures including Winston Churchill
and Albert Einstein. This is the first attempt to bring one of the darkest
periods of Czechoslovakia’s past to the stage.
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Czech MusicEncore: Music for the movies - from the Emperor of Abyssinia to the Count of Monte Cristo
For this edition of Encore we go to the movies, looking at two contemporary
composers who have approached the art of composing for film from very
different angles. More
One on OneAles Brezina - from Martinu to Menzel to Milada Horakova
Today's guest for One on One is Ales Brezina, the head of the Bohuslav
Martinu Institute in Prague. Mr. Brezina has spent the last twelve years
compiling, annotating and publicizing the work of Martinu - perhaps the
greatest Czech composer of the 20th century. But that's not all he's been
up to. Mr. Brezina is a composer in his own right, providing the
soundtrack
for films such as 'Musime si pomahat' (or 'Divided We Fall') by Jan
Hrebejk, and Jiri Menzel's 'Obsluhoval jsem anglickeho krale' ('I served
the King of England'). As if that wasn't enough, Ales Brezina is just
putting the finishing touches to his first opera, called 'Zitra se
bude...'
and based upon the show trial of Milada Horakova, sentenced to death by
the
Czechoslovak Communist government in 1950. When I caught up with Ales
Brezina last week, I started by asking him whether his close work with
Martinu's music had had any effect upon his own composition: More
Czechs TodayFilm composer Ales Brezina - on Martinu, Menzel, and silence
Jiri Menzel's new film I Served the King of England, an adaptation of
Bohumil Hrabal's classic novel of the same name, is proving hugely
successful among Czech filmgoers. Many people, however, have been
particularly captivated by the wonderful score, created by the Czech film
composer Ales Brezina. In this week's edition of Czechs Today, Rob Cameron
speaks to Ales at the offices of the Martinu Institute, the organisation
he's built up virtually from scratch since 1995.
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Current AffairsA new "Passion" unveiled at National Theatre
Many are familiar with the work of one of the greatest Czech composers,
Bohuslav Martinu. Martinu wrote a number of operas in a career that
spanned more than half a century. But he wrote only one tragic opera,
"The Greek Passion." A new translation of "The Greek
Passion" premiered at Prague's historic National Theatre on Thursday
night, just in time for Easter.
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