The leading international and most frequently played Norwegian dramatist Jon Fosse received an honorary doctorate from the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts one hour before midday today. The ceremonial session of the Artistic Council of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts took place at the na Orlí Theatre. During the ceremony, the famous Norwegian writer, poet, prose writer and dramatist received the Brno academy’s highest award. Fosse received the Gold Medal of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts and a diploma with the title Doctor Artis Dramaticae Honoris Causa of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts. The ceremony was also attended by the Norwegian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Robert Kvile.
“I am a great fan of Janáček’s music and I know his Youth sextet very well, part of which was played during the ceremony,” said the recipient of the new honorary doctorate after the hour-long ceremony. In addition to two movements from Janáček’s work, students from the Brno academy also supplemented the program by reciting a fragment from Fosse’s Death in Thebes in a translation by Karolína Stehlíková. The fragment from the author’s treatment of three of Sophocles tragedies was simultaneously translated into sign language on stage, as was the case for the entire exceptional event. The sixty-two-year-old Fosse admitted that it was his first time in Brno. “I greatly appreciate receiving the highest award from the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts. My Slovak wife, Anna, was born in the former Czechoslovakia, with whose culture and history my two daughters also have extremely close ties.” He added that they both speak Slovak and Norwegian, as well as several other international languages. During his speech of thanks, called the Quiet Speech, he directly emphasised that he feels himself to be a Central European only thanks to the fact that he frequently settled in this region due to his marriage. “I am already slightly Slovak and as such I also feel slightly Czech,” he said at the social gathering.
Fosse is currently the best-known Norwegian dramatist and is often compared with the Norwegian great, Henrik Ibsen. His plays have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has been one of the most frequently played contemporary dramatists not only in his native Norway, but also throughout Europe and on all inhabited continents, where his works have been performed in thousands of productions since the mind 1990s. The Dean of the Theatre Faculty at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, Associate Professor Mgr. Petr Francán, gave the laudation for the laureate, entitled In the Mercy of the Moment, to the audience in the auditorium of the school’s theatre. During his speech, he pointed to the fact that the decorated artist, who originally studied as a sociologist, philosopher and literary scientist, has created an exceptionally valuable body of work translated into more than forty languages and containing more than fifty volumes since his debut novel Red, Black of 1983. Fosse has received more than fifty prestigious prizes for his literary activities. Dean Francán mentioned at least the most important of them: “He has received the prestigious Norwegian Ibsen Award twice, namely in 1996 for his play The Name and for As It Was in 2021. In 2005, he received the Order of Saint Olav in his native land. In 2010, he also received the international Ibsen Award and, last but not least, he received the Nordic Council Literature Prize, i.e. one of the most prestigious European literature prizes, in 2015 for his mystical trilogy about love (Wakefulness, Olav’s Dreams and Weariness). However, the Dean also emphasised in his speech that he was not only interested in simply enumerating the awards and dates from the life of this internationally renowned writer. Of the dozens of productions of his plays in the Czech Republic, the Theatre Faculty at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts has been directly associated with five of them. Francán also relativized the frequently published phrase that claims Fosse as the “new or second Ibsen”. “Fosse is not the second Ibsen. Fosse is the first Fosse … Jon Fosse is also not the new Ibsen. Jon Fosse is permanently focussed on being Fosse …”
The Janáček Academy of Performing Arts has awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa since 1993. To date, this title has been received by fifteen internationally renowned artists. By accepting the academy’s highest award, all of the recipients of the honorary doctorates have increased not only the institution’s domestic image, but also its international prestige. “We are convinced that the highest award that we can issue at our alma mater rightly belongs to Jon Fosse,” said the Rector of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, Professor Mgr. Petr Oslzlý, who chaired the ceremonial session. Jon Fosse has thus expanded the ranks of the recipients of honorary doctorates at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts; Rudolf Firkušný, Ludvík Kundera, Václav Havel, Jiří Suchý, Sir Charles Mackerras, Ivan Vyskočil, Zdeněk Mácal, Sir Tom Stoppard, Pierre Boulez, Emílie Vášáryová, John Tyrrell, Milan Uhde, Vojtěch Jasný, Eugenio Barba and Vlasta Chramostová.
Mgr. Luboš Mareček, Ph.D.
PHOTO: RADEK MIČA