This autumn concert is to be held in the spirit of the beautiful tradition of our opera company involving the performance of large vocal and instrumental works in which the wonderful chorus and orchestra of National Theatre Brno’s Janáček Opera can present themselves outside their classical opera repertoire. This time, it is to be conducted by new chief conductor Robert Kružík, and the evening is to belong to one of Antonín Dvořák’s exceptional works. His Requiem is one of the most beautiful treatments of a mass for the dead, although in this case Antonín Dvořák was inspired not by death, but by a far more prosaic reason – the work was commissioned by a music festival in Birmingham, England, and it was Dvořák’s London publisher who proposed a mass for the dead. Dvořák therefore conceived it more as a reflection and assessment of the past half century of his life and, at the same time, as an expression of his relationship with God. His Requiem, divided into two parts, is one of Dvořák’s most profound works. Freed from external ostentation and composed in a form without closed musical numbers, it is a testimony to the composer’s view of death.

12 November 2025 at the Janáček Theatre

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