Entertainment

Rarities as recently as 20 years ago, Leos Janácek's wondrous operas Jenufa and Katya Kabanova have become virtually standard repertory, with The Makropoulos Case not far behind. But the Czech composer's last opera, From the House of the Dead (1930), has remained obscure.

The title, of course, is a bit off-putting. And the story, such as it is, isn't exactly heartwarming. Compressed from Dostoyevsky's Memoirs From the House of the Dead, it's a series of scenes in a prison as one prisoner after another tells why he's there: domestic abuse, robbery, murder.

As with Britten's Billy Budd, it's essentially an all-male opera in an oppressive setting. Even more than Billy Budd, it explores the posturing, threats and violence fueled by unchecked testosterone. In Patrice Chéreau's staging, at the 2007 Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, danger lurks everywhere in designer Richard Peduzzi's generic concrete-walled prison.

Appropriate to the drama, the vocal writing is more blustery than Janácek's usual, offering few opportunities for genuinely lyric singing. But the orchestral writing, which features brightly colored chugs, chatters and thrusts, is a veritable life force defying bitterness and violence.

The tender relationship between the aristocratic Alexandr Petrovic Gorjancikov and the young Tartar Aljeja is sensitively realized by Olaf Bär and Eric Stoklossa (a young tenor in a "trousers" role originally conceived for a mezzo-soprano). Other standouts in the cast include Stefan Margita as Luka Kuzmic, John Mark Ainsley as Skuratov and Gerd Grochowski as Siskov.

Pierre Boulez gets capable playing from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, although the awkward high violin writing audibly stresses the young musicians. The chorus is aptly imposing. Audio and video quality are good, if not ideally clear and true. The film director is Stéphane Metge.

This is stern stuff, à la Wozzeck, and not something you'll want to watch every week. But it's a powerful exploration of scary undercurrents of humanity, and the music is stirring.

A-From the House of the Dead

Bär, Stoklossa, Margita, Ainsley, Grochowski, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Chéreau, Boulez (DG DVD)

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