Day 2 Bohuslav Martinů´s opera The Three Wishes

Day 2 (Wed 2nd June), 19:30: Record of Bohuslav Martinů´s opera The Three Wishes

Introduction by Helena Spurná, Department of the Theory and History of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava 

Unique occasion - film-opera  Les Trois Souhaits ou les Vicissitudes de la vie  / Three Wishes / Tři přání - music by Martinů - libretto by Ribemont-Dessaignes to be seen 2nd June: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKmv_GwCMVI&t=1s

Bohuslav Martinů: Three Wishes

The experimental opera-film Three Wishes was based on the libretto Les Trois Souhaits ou les Vicissitudes de la vie of the French Dadaist Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes. His play The Mute Canary was staged by Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theatre) in 1926. During the same year, the libretto was created. It was based on a fairy-tale motive of the three wishes, the direct fulfilment of which, though, is destructive for every character in the play and for their relationships. In the film, the plot is dynamic due to the two parallel planes of filming – the original characters of the story are mirrored in the fictional reality of a cafe. The opera was originally only an impulse of the Liberated Theatre; yet it coincided with the crisis of the avant-garde theatre programme in mid-1929. The opera was brought to the stage of the State Theatre in Brno only in 1971.

Due to its experimental character and intricacy of staging, the opera Three Wishes is staged world-wide only exceptionally. As a part of the Conference programme, we would like to share a 2015 recording of the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre / music production – J. Klecker, direction – J. Nekvasil, stage – D. Dvořák, costumes – Sylva Zimula Hanáková.

Helena Spurná

Associate professor at the Department of the Theory and History of Arts at the Faculty of Arts, University in Ostrava. She focuses on inter-war avant-garde theatre as well as opera theatre. She also worked as a dramaturge (the Czech television and National theatre in Ostrava).

Besides the articles and chapters in the books, she is also the author of two sole monographs connected with the avant-garde: Emil František Burian a jeho cesty za operou (Emil František Burian and his Path to Opera, Praha: KLP, 2014) and Divadelní režisér a člověk Oldřich Stibor: 1901 – 1943 (The Theatre Director and Man Oldřich Stibor: 1901 – 1943, Olomouc: Faculty ofArts, 2014). She edited several publications, e. g. Hudební divadlo jako výzva. Interdisciplinární texty (Music Theatre as a Challenge. Interdisciplinary Texts, *Prague: National Theatre, 2004), including articles of the international experts on the opera. She works now on two research projects, one of them concerns avant-garde opera in interwar Czechoslovakia.