Ostrava, Czech Rep. (The Trial)
October 22
https://www.ndm.cz/en/opera/instance/6625-the-trial/2025-10-09/79469/#tab2
Philip Glass
Premiere Oct 9, 2025, 6.30 PM – KSVV
Opera in two acts from 2014
Libretto by Christopher Hampton (1946) after the novel by Franz Kafka (1883–1924) from 1914
Music director Bruno Ferrandis
Stage director Jiří Nekvasil
Sung in English
Philip Glass is a contemporary opera composer whose works are most frequently performed in the world. His illustrious career began in the late 1960s, when he emerged as a leading figure in the development of repetitive minimalism.
Glass’ landmark work of 20th-century opera emerging from composer’s deep interest in music theatre is Einstein on the Beach composed in 1976, and his operatic catalogue has since grown to include more than thirty titles. After adapting Kafka’s short story In the Penal Colony, Glass returned to the author’s world with The Trial, a ‘pocket’ opera for eight singers and twelve instrumentalists.
Christopher Hampton’s libretto follows Josef K., who is arrested without explanation and becomes trapped in an incomprehensible judicial system. The novel’s chilling portrayal of bureaucracy and existential helplessness is vividly echoed in Glass’s music, with its hypnotic patterns and underlying tension. Thomas Mann once described Kafka’s writing as “the irrational and oppressive folly of dreams”—a description that aptly suits this atmospheric score.
The opera premiered on 10 October 2014 at London’s Royal Opera House (Linbury Theatre). Our production will be presented in the atmospheric setting of St. Wenceslas Church in Ostrava, with just twelve performances over fifteen days—a rare opportunity to experience this haunting work in a unique space.
Premieres on 9 and 10 October 2025 at St. Wenceslas Church
Oct 9, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Premiere show detail
Oct 10, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV 2nd premiere show detail
Oct 11, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 12, 2025 3.00 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 14, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 15, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 16, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 17, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 21, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 22, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 23, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Repetition show detail
Oct 24, 2025 6.30 PM KSVV Derniere show detail