Destiny
Music by Leoš Janáček · libretto by Leoš Janáček · premiered 1958
Destiny (also known as Fate, Czech: Osud) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer and Fedora Bartošová.
Janáček began the work in 1903 and completed it in 1907.
The inspiration for the opera came from a visit by Janáček in the summer of 1903, after the death of his daughter Olga, to the spa at Luhačovice.
There, Janáček met Kamila Urválková, who had been the subject of an opera by Ludvík Čelanský, Kamila, where she felt that Čelanský had falsely depicted her personality.
After learning that Janáček was a composer, Urválková persuaded Janáček to write another opera to counteract Čelanský's portrait of her. Janáček submitted the opera to the Brno Theatre in 1906, and to the Vinohrady Theatre in Prague in 1907, but both theatres rejected the score.
The score stayed with the Vinohrady Theatre even after Janáček had threatened lawsuits against the theatre and after the Brno theatre made offers of a possible production. The work did not receive a hearing until after Janáček's death, in 1934 on Brno Radio.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Destiny (Janáček)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Leoš Janáček is the composer of record for this opera.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Leoš Janáček", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Leoš Janáček
- From the House of the Dead (1862)
- Jenůfa (1904)
- Káťa Kabanová (1921)