JAMU awards an honorary doctorate to director Otto Schenk
As part of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the institution’s founding, the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts Brno will award an honorary doctorate to the Austrian actor and director Otto Schenk. The ceremony is to take place on 6 November 2017 at 11 am at the Theatre on Orlí Street.
The title Doctor Honoris Causa is awarded by JAMU to Otto Schenk for his contribution to Czech music – his productions of the Czech opera repertoire were a permanent part of repertoires of opera stages around the world and helped to promote Czech music abroad.
Eighty-seven-year-old Schenk is a legend of opera directing; his professional career is mainly connected with the Vienna State Opera. In 1964, he staged Janáček’s Jenůfa as the very first opera title on this stage. As he himself said, one must simply love Janáček. He was also interested in other works of the Czech opera repertoire. Besides Janáček, he directed Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (1982, with the famous soprano Lucia Popp in the role of Mařenka); his staging of Dvořák’s Rusalka (1987) with a Czechoslovak team is also legendary, with excelling conductor Václav Neumann, singers Gabriela Beňačková as Rusalka and Peter Dvorský in the role of Prince: this production was transferred to the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2014 and the global superstars Renée Fleming and Piotr Beczala were cast. So far, the last Czech title staged by Otto Schenk was Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Vienna State Opera in 2014. The director recalled this production, highly valued by the professional and lay public alike: “Janáček has always been like a father to me. He was both my opening and closing act at the Vienna State Opera.”
Besides his home Vienna State Opera, Otto Schenk has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, such as the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Staatsoper Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. All of Schenk’s opera productions have one thing in common: respect for the composer’s manuscript, which the director follows as much as possible.
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