Janácek was in the process of correcting the score when he died and the work was performed posthumously in 1930.
Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski’s staging is its first at the Royal Opera House.
From The House Of The Dead is a study of what prison does to its inmates and the possibility of redemption. In Dostoevsky’s words: “In every creature, a spark of God.”
A political prisoner Gorjancikov (Willard White) arrives at the gulag and is promptly sent off by the prison governor to be flogged.
On recovering he comes to know his fellow inmates, most of whom are imprisoned on charges of violence or murder, and he teaches a victimised young prisoner Aljeja (Pascal Charbonneau) to read and write.
Designer Malgorzata Szczesniak’s screen of linked metal plates is in key with the harshly clanging notes of the overture.
The set resembles a large gymnasium with a basketball net, neon strip lighting and glass box that serves as the prison governor’s office. In a series of episodic scenes the prisoners enact on a makeshift stage the events that led to their incarceration, most of which involve vodka and jealousy over women.
The most harrowing is a tale of domestic abuse by Johan Reuter’s Siskov relating how he murdered his wife because she was still in love with the man who had rejected her.
Strong performances all round make this rarely performed opera one to catch before it ends next Saturday.