Composed between 1923 and 1925, The Makropulos Case, with music and libretto by Leoš Janáček, is based on Karel Čapek’s eponymous play. Originally set in Prague in 1922, it concerns a hundred year old probate case entitled Gregor v. Prus. When Baron Joseph Ferdinand Prus died in 1827 his cousin claimed the estate, but so too did one Ferdinand Gregor, who asserted that the Baron had promised it to him. While the people originally involved are long dead, their...

Jules Massenet’s Werther, with libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann, was written between 1885 and 1887, although it did not premiere until 1892. Set in Wetzlar in Germany in the 1780s, and loosely based on Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, it concerns a melancholic poet who is besotted with Charlotte. Their feelings for each other begin to develop when her betrothed Albert is away, but he returns unexpectedly and Charlotte...