FULL Diary of the One Who Disappeared (Janáček) Oslo 1980 Kare Bjorkoy, Anne-Lise Gunnarsja
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Diary of the One Who Disappeared or Dagbok til ein som vart borte
- Composer: Janáček Leoš
- Libretto: Josef Kalda
- Venue & Opera Company: Oslo, Norway
- Recorded: 1980
- Type: Concert Semi-staged
- Singers: Kare Bjorkoy, Anne-Lise Gunnarsja
- Conductor:
- Orchestra: Geir Henning Braaten, PIANO
- Stage Director: Tor Obrestad
- Stage Designer: Per Fjeld
- Costume Designer: Ellen Andreassen
- Lighting Designer: Ingolf Ramstad
Information about the Recording
- Published by: nrk
- Date Published: 1980
- Format: Broadcast
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: nrk FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Zápisník zmizelého, or (The) Diary of One Who Disappeared, is a half-hour Czech-language quasi-operatic song cycle for tenor, alto, three other women’s voices and piano completed in 1919 by Leoš Janáček. Of its 22 sections, 18 are for tenor and piano alone; midway through, three sections involve the women, and these are followed by a commenting one for piano solo: an intermezzo erotico. The song cycle was premiered at the Reduta Theatre in Brno in 1921.
On May 14, 1916, the Lidové noviny newspaper published verses titled From the Pen of a Self-Taught Writer. This diary-in-poems tells the story of an unnamed village boy who falls in love with the “black gipsy girl” Zefka (Žofka) and decides to leave his family and village with her. The diary made a deep impression on Leoš Janáček, a cooperator on Lidové noviny at that time, and he decided to rework it into a song cycle.
The author of From the Pen of a Self-Taught Writer was unknown for decades, but in 1998 Dr. Jan Mikeska identified him as the Wallachian writer Ozef Kalda.
Janáček created a song cycle in twenty-two brief sections with scenic demands. He worked on it in August 1917 and June 1919, completing it then. Modifications were made in December 1920. The composer created the work simultaneously with other compositions. Janáček was inspired by his own friend and late love Kamila Stösslová. He expressed his inclinations in letters to her, telling her about the character Zefka (Žofka): “And the black gipsy girl in my Diary of One Who Disappeared — she was you. That’s why there’s so much emotional fire in the work. So much fire that if we both caught on, we’d be turned into ashes. … And all through the work I thought of you! You were my Žofka. Žofka with a child in her arms, and he runs after her!”
The song cycle received its first performance in the small Reduta Theatre in the Moravian capital Brno on 18 April 1921 under the title Diary of One Who Disappeared and Was Never Heard of Again. This title would later be shortened by Janáček. The tenor part was performed by Karel Zavřel, the alto by Ludmila Kvapilová-Kudláčková, and the pianist was Janáček student Břetislav Bakala, also a conductor.
The atmosphere of the work is mysterious; it conveys emotional strength as well as psychological depth. The main female part was at first written for soprano and then lowered by the composer for alto. The piano part bears some Impressionistic features.