Bohuslav Martinu’s The Greek Passion has had a rough life. Written between 1954 and 1957 to his own English libretto based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis (who also wrote Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ), the opera was first approved—then rejected for being too radical—by Covent Garden.  

Martinu then produced a second, more conservative version of the opera, fundamentally a totally different work which retained only about thirty percent of the original score, which didn’t reach the stage till 1961, two years after the composer’s death. This “Zürich Version” was produced by various major opera companies over the next decades.

Ales Brezina, the head of the Bohuslav Martinu Institute in Prague, undertook a complete reconstruction of the original “English Version,” which premiered at the 1999 Bregenzer Festspiele, where it starred Christopher Ventris (as Manolios), Nina Stemme (as Katerina), and Jonas Kaufmann (as Nikolios).

For its premiere at Prague’s Národní divadlo, the libretto was translated into Czech, the version which I am pleased to offer today in a live performance from 2006 cast with stars from the company’s ensemble.

Bohuslav Martinu: The Greek Passion
First Version (1954-1957)
Reconstructed by Ales Brezina

Národní divadlo Praha
Jirí Belohlávek, conductor
13 April 2006

Manolios – Tomás Cerny
Katerina – Maida Hundeling
Panait – Jaroslav Brezina
Father Grigoris – Ludek Vele
Father Fotis – Roman Janál
Yannakos – Jan Vacík
Kostandis – Frantisek Zahradnicek
Lenio – Petra Nótová
Ladas – Václav Knop
Patriacheas – Ales Hendrych
Michelis – Pavel Cernoch
Nikolios – Ales Briscein
Andonis – Jan Markvart
An old woman – Lenka Smidová
Despinio – Hana Jonásová
An old man – Miroslav Podskalsky