Performance History
Two years after its premiere, the opera was given in Prague, and also in Germany in 1929, but it did not become really popular until a production by the Sadler's Wells company in London in 1964. While performed with some regularity, it has not become part of the core opera repertory in the same way as have Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová or The Cunning Little Vixen.
In 1966, the San Francisco Opera gave the first performances (in an English translation) of the opera in the U.S. with Marie Collier in the lead role. Other notable sopranos who have performed the opera include Anja Silja, Maralin Niska (in Frank Corsaro's production), Karan Armstrong, Jessye Norman, Elisabeth Söderström, Catherine Malfitano, and Karita Mattila.
On January 5, 1996 the opening night of a Metropolitan Opera production ended prematurely only a few minutes into Act 1 when tenor Richard Versalle, 63, suffered a heart attack while climbing the 20-foot ladder which was part of the set, fell, and died on stage immediately after singing Vitek's line: "Too bad you can only live so long".
Read more about this topic: The Makropulos Affair (opera)
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“The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience there is no theater. Every technique learned by the actor, every curtain, every flat on the stage, every careful analysis by the director, every coordinated scene, is for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, our evaluators, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)
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