The Makropulos Case – Edinburgh review

Tom Cairns's production of The Makropulos Case for Opera North, premiering in Edinburgh ahead of its autumn run in Leeds, updates Janacek's 1926 masterpiece to the early 1960s, where it sits comfortably. Its underlying theme – that life has meaning precisely because it is finite – maps onto the existentialist thinking of the times. The transposition also allows Cairns to re-imagine the lead, Emilia Marty, in terms of the iconic women of the period.

Played by plush-voiced Ylva Kihlberg, she reminds us in turn of Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and the mature Marlene Dietrich in cabaret mode. Given that Emilia's life has been monstrously extended by a scientific experiment, the effects of which are now wearing off, our ideas of what constitutes ageless beauty take on a chilling resonance.

Kihlberg is in many ways exceptionally fine. She's particularly good at the panic behind the poise. Her voice blazes in sensual defiance against the physical weariness eating her away. She's less successful, however, with Emilia's agonised awareness that the indefinite preservation of the body can rot the soul. The final scenes consequently don't quite overwhelm as they should.

Cairns's staging, meanwhile, has some terrific strengths. The clocks on the walls of Hildegard Bechtler's set begin to speed up as time runs out. All the tricky legal wrangling between Gregor (Paul Nilon, excellent) and Prus (bullish Robert Hayward) is done with considerable deftness.

Towards the end, though, there are a couple of lapses. Emilia's all-important bed takes up so much space on stage that the performers look cramped, and when she dies, her possessions go up in flames for reasons that are never quite clear. What is faultless, though, is Richard Farnes's conducting, which is superb in its passion, elation and drive throughout.