A contemplation on immortality, Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair this month features in Welsh National Opera’s Birmingham Hippodrome programme of shows. What’s On recently caught up with Spanish soprano Ángeles Blancas Gulín, who plays the lead role of Emilia Marty in the production, to find out what audiences can expect...

Emilia Marty seems to have it all. She is successful, beautiful and adored by everyone. And what’s more, she is immortal. Yet Emilia, the lead character in Leoš Janáček’s opera, The Makropulos Affair, is far from happy. After more than 300 years of living, she’s realised that she has nothing left to enjoy. 

Being immortal may seem like a dream come true, but, says Spanish soprano Ángeles Blancas Gulín, who plays Emilia in the new Welsh National Opera (WNO) version of the show, her character gradually learns that life without love is meaningless.

“Emilia Marty does a lot of things,” says Ángeles. “She takes cocaine, and she is smoking and drinking because she doesn’t care. She does everything she wants and says everything she wants to say.

“But for her, living 300 years has been hard because she has lost all kind of emotions and feelings. She doesn’t feel anything now because she has had so many huge experiences in her life that she doesn’t care anymore about it. She doesn’t feel love, she doesn’t feel pain, nothing.

“Nobody knows what it would really be like to be immortal; what someone can do, really do, when they are living forever, but also the cost. It would be so tough.”

Czech composer Janáček premiered The Makropulos Affair, which is based on a play of the same name by Czech dramatist Karel Čapek, in 1926. It was last performed by WNO in 1994, in a production by the company’s former artistic director, Sir David Pountney. 

Directed by Olivia Fuchs and conducted by WNO Music Director Tomáš Hanus, the new production is set in the 1920s and also features Nicky Spence, Gustáv Beláček, David Stout, Harriet Eyley and Mark Le Brocq in the cast.

The Makropulos Affair is said to be partly inspired by Janáček’s unrequited passion for a married woman. Pouring his emotion into his work, Janáček created one of opera’s most dramatic and enigmatic female roles in Emilia Marty. 

“It is an absolutely amazing part,” says Ángeles. “Janáček’s music really gets inside the story, so you are always inside a real drama. Emilia is playing a role because she is the only one who really knows what’s happening. 

“Everyone is crazy about this woman, but she knows everything they don’t know, and they are all asking ‘How is this possible?’ This is what makes the story very interesting - she is a really mysterious woman.
“When you play the part of someone who has a really deep life, a spiritual life, you can feel it. And with Emilia Marty, it’s like that. She is so strong; she’s had 300 years of living, so a lot of different experiences, and it is something that people can smell - the energy. When you find somebody who has a different energy inside like this, it’s irresistible.”

Ángeles first played Emilia at La Fenice Opera House in Venice in 2013, and then again at Strasbourg Opera House in 2016. Each time she comes to the part, she learns more about her character.

“I was a completely different woman the first time I played her. Now I am older, I’ve changed, I have so much more experience -  and different kinds of experience - so I am different. And that means I understand her so much better now than nine years ago and six years ago. 

“And it’s about how you play the role. So for example, sometimes in the opera you want to make a lot of movement. You don’t like the empty moments, so you do things to fill them - but actually, the less you do, the better it is.”

Ángeles was born in Spain and made her debut in concert with Plácido Domingo. Since then she’s performed roles in operas including Mozart’s Magic Flute, Puccini’s Tosca, Verdi’s Aida and Monteverdi’s Coronation Of Poppea. And she has appeared in venues across the globe such as Liceu Opera in Barcelona, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires.

The Makropulos Affair is her first engagement with Welsh National Opera. She is looking forward to touring with the company. “I’ve sung at Covent Garden and the Barbican Centre, but that is all for the UK, so everywhere I go, it will be for the first time. I’m very excited about this.” The production is also travelling to Brno in the Czech Republic, where it forms part of the line-up for the prestigious biennial Janáček Brno International Opera & Music Festival.

The Makropulos Affair is the final part of a WNO Janáček trilogy which has also included The Cunning Little Vixen and Jenůfa. Under the baton of Brno-born Hanus, the company has gained an international reputation for its Janáček works.

For Ángeles, the composer’s work is highly theatrical. “Janáček is very passionate; there is passion inside his music. This opera is very dramatic - the acting is very important because Emilia Marty is such an exhilarating woman that you don’t need to do extra things for the audience to understand her. If you do exactly what is written, it’s going to be wonderful.”

One of the challenges of performing Janáček is mastering the Czech libretto, which is surtitled in Welsh and English on the tour. “This is a new production and has a wonderful conductor who is Czech, so I feel I am really inside the Czech mood. But learning the Czech language is hard work.

“The first time I met with the Czech language was with the opera Rusalka in 2007. I began to work really hard to get inside the language - I write all the words, I translate, I memorise, I listen to the pronunciation, and I need to understand the music of the language.
“The main thing is to make all the different words have a distinct beginning and end because even though the audience is going to listen just to a line, you must be saying each word separately, and you must feel each word individually. It must come from inside your soul. Only then will it make sense to anyone who understands the language.”

The Makropulos Affair may be nearly 100 years old, but Ángeles believes it has a very current message.
“I think the opera is saying that we need to go to the really important things in life. There is a phrase of Emilia Marty’s in which she says: ‘You are idiots because you don’t understand how important it is just to live one life, a normal life, with the really important things.’”

by Diane Parkes

Welsh National Opera’s The Makropulos Affair shows at Birmingham Hippodrome on Tuesday 8 November. Other WNO productions showing at the venue include La bohème, from Wed 9 to Fri 11 November, and Migrations on Sat 12 November