The works here represent planned or unfinished scores and works which, despite their original genre, received dramatic performances. All planned, unfinished or lost works receive admirably detailed attention and terrifically scholarly notes in Jan�ček�s Works: A catalogue of the music and writings of Leo� Jan�ček. Details are given here of those sort of works are intended for people to understand what else Jan�ček was thinking of writing at the time of the composition of his nine finished operas.


PLANNED OPERAS

Posledn� Abencerage [The last of the Abenc�rages] JW XI/1

This opera in three acts was based on Chateaubriand�s tale Les aventures du dernier des Abenc�rages. We know that Jan�ček planned an opera because his copy of the text was divided into acts, with details of musical numbers, together with a cast list with voice types. The plans were made in 1885 (see details in the catalogue), which places it a couple of years before he started work on ��rka.

Andĕlsk� son�ta [Angelic sonata] JW XI/6

Just before the first production of Jenůfa Jan�ček planned this four act opera based on a novel by Josef Merhaut. He made only a few plans of the scenes in the opera, and no planned music exists. It is interest to see that despite the fact that Jenůfa had not yet been produced in Brno Jan�ček was still scouting for material (along with Osud) for a new operatic project.

Mary�a JW XI/7

After the first performance of Jenůfa Jan�ček was eagerly searching for more material to make into an opera. Although no evidence exists, from correspondence or from Jan�ček�s diary to support that Mary�a was one of these projects, Vladim�r Helfert suggested that the libretto Jan�ček was dealing with Vil�m Mr�t�k about in July 1908 was his and his brother�s play. These suggestions are, however, disputable, and we cannot be sure that there were solid plans for any such opera. What any of these allegations suggest is Jan�ček�s customary eagerness to start a new operatic project was widespread, and not solely focused on one text, as is frequently suggested.

Gadzina roba [The farm mistress] JW XI/8

What we can be much more certain of is Jan�ček�s intentions to set Gabriela Preissov�s play Gadzina roba. After the success of Jenůfa (based on one of her other dramatic works, Jej� pastorkyňa) Jan�ček approached her for permission to set the play. It was duly granted in a postcard from 29th April 1904. From here the composer went on to annotate act one of the play, and even noted down a few musical motifs. Obtaining the rights to the material and the contemplation of it as suitable subject matter are quite surprising seeing as the play was also the basis for Bohuslav Foerster�s 1899 opera Eva. The project never came to light, but shows that Jan�ček even after Jenůfa and Poč�tek rom�nu was incredibly fond of Preissov�s work, and found much of it suitable for operatic material. These more definite plans are coupled with more spurious ones for another opera, this time in one act, Jarn� p�seň [Spring song] also based on a play by Preissov�.

D�tĕ [The child] JW XI/9

After the suggestions of Max Brod, the German translator of K�t'a Kabanov� and friend, Jan�ček looked at the play D�tĕ, by �alda as the basis for a new opera. There was a slight overlap in subject matter with Jenůfa, concerning the death of a child, but many years down the line, and presently concerned with The Vixen Jan�ček contemplated the subject matter. He annotated a copy of the play whilst on holiday in �trbsk� Pleso in the Slovak mountains, but also had with him the play on which he found greater favour and which was to become his next opera, Vĕc Makropulos. Its similarities with Jenůfa may be the basis in Jan�ček�s resolution to turn away from the project. After K�t'a Kabanov� both The Vixen and Makropulos mark a move away from traditional operatic subjects, so a return to the mode of his earliest success Jenůfa would have been a step back too far.


UNFINISHED OPERAS

Pan� mincmistrov� [The mintmaster�s wife] JW IX/3

This comic opera which Jan�ček started writing at the same time as Osud was based on a play by Ladislav Stroupe�nick�. Although the composer started looking into the details of the rights to the text he actually only composed one scene and the project was abandoned.

Anna Karenina JW IX/4

Perhaps the most tantalising idea is that Jan�ček was to have composed an opera based on Tolstoy�s novel. Benjamin Britten also contemplated the subject later in the century, yet Britten decided against the idea when the news became public. Interestingly Jan�ček�s drafts for the opera in three acts were written in Russian, though again he sketched drafts for only one scene. The sketches for the opera were discovered by a relative in Jan�ček�s own copy of the novel. The subject matter perhaps acts as a precursor to K�t'a Kabanov� by demonstrating the composer�s predisposition for a Russian subject matter.

�iv� mrtvola [The living corpse] JW IX/6

Tolstoy was also the subject for Jan�ček�s next unfinished opera, again started before his magnum Russian opus K�t'a Kabanov�. Again he composed only one scene (in full score in comparison to the vocal score for Anna Karenina), though this time had created a Czech libretto for the scene.



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