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Orchestral parts were copied between October and December, and by mid-November
police permission had been given for the performances (see CHAPTER 2, §2.1, LB).
Around Christmas, Janáček wrote to Camilla Urválková that ‘Only the soloists and
chorus know their parts from the opera and know how to perform them! The
orchestra has not had rehearsals yet.’ 40 Some of the orchestral parts were in fact still
being copied (a note by the copyist at the end of the trombone 1 part dates it 30
December), which would have meant that the full score (of which there was only one
copy) was still with the theatre’s copyists.
Originally scheduled for 14 January, the première was put back a week to
Thursday 21 January. 41 According to another note, in the oboe 1 part, the first full
rehearsal for Act 1 took place as late as 19 January. Despite Staněk-Doubravský’s
reassurances, the orchestra for the première and subsequent performances was
notoriously small, as few as twenty-nine players, with several crucial instruments,
including harp, cor anglais and bass clarinet, missing. 42 Nevertheless, the work was
received with a huge amount of enthusiasm by the local audience, and was well
attended. 43 The Brno press was favourable, although, as Janáček later ruefully noted,
40 JODA, 53 (JP22 and fn. 1).
41 JODA, 53.
42 Němcová 1971, 117–18. The orchestra was further depleted as the season wore on: around 15 April
1904 Janáček wrote to Hana Kvapilová that ‘Even before now, the orchestra has been incomplete to an
alarming extent: the new director has given notice to the horn player, the trumpet player — they are
apparently not needed for the summer season. I myself don’t even go to the theatre now — I don’t
want to hear my own work in such a broken-down state.’ (JODA, JP39) Janáček’s references to ‘the
new director’ and ‘the summer season’ testify to the unstable nature of the theatre company in Brno:
although under the auspices of the Brno Theatre družstvo [consortium], the company itself (general
director, music director, orchestra and singers) was taken on as a franchise simply for the duration of
the season; see CO, 57–8.
43 Lidové noviny (20 January 1904) reported that bookings were so numerous that the première had to
be placed outside the subscription series in order to satisfy demand; Němcová 1974, 138.
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