PERFORMANCE DETAIL

Libretto by Christopher Hampton (1946) after the novel by Franz Kafka (1883–1924) from 1914

Conductor 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