The Palau de les Arts premieres today Miloš Forman's jazz opera A Well Paid Walk

16.05.2007

The Palau de les Arts premieres this afternoon the jazz opera directed by film director and two-time Oscar winner, Miloš Forman, A Well Paid Walk.
A Well Paid Ride was created by Jiří Šlitr and Jiří Suchý, the most popular theatrical musical duo in the Czech Republic since the 1960s. The arrangements and musical direction are by Libor Pešek.

The Czech director himself emphasized at yesterday's press conference that this work "has everything I like to see as a spectator: intelligent humor, audacity, surrealism, and music." He also explained that A Well-Paid Walk "is a moralistic fable that has a lot to do with Czechoslovakia in the 1960s under Soviet totalitarianism." A Well-Paid Walk will premiere this evening at 8:30 p.m. and will run on May 17, 18, and 19. On the final day, the Valencian theater has scheduled two performances, the first at noon and the second at 8:30 p.m.

A complete theme

The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía has organized a complete film series about Miloš Forman to coincide with the premiere of his first foray into opera.

The theme “Miloš Forman. Creation and Fulfillment”, with free admission to all activities, will be held in the Coliseum's Aula Magistral and includes some of the most outstanding films of the renowned filmmaker: Valmont on May 16; Ragtime on May 17; Hair, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on May 18; and Contest, Goya's Ghosts and Amadeus on May 19.

In addition, the film series will be complemented by an engaging program of lectures. This afternoon, Professor Juan Miguel Company will give a talk entitled “Miloš Forman, Fullness.” Tomorrow, critic José Luis Pérez de Arteaga will speak on “Music in the Films of Miloš Forman.” The program also includes the exhibition “Miloš Forman, Fullness,” featuring photographs by Petr Nasic and Irena Vodakova, and a Q&A session with the filmmaker's audience.

Success in Prague

A Well-Paid Walk premiered on April 22nd at the National Theatre in Prague (Národní Divadlo) to great critical and popular acclaim. The event, attended by Mayor Helga Schmidt, attracted leading figures from the country's cultural, political, and social spheres, including Nobel Prize laureate and former President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, and Prime Minister Miroslav Topolónek.

The audience gathered in the Main Hall of the Národní Divadlo gave Miloš Forman a long and warm ovation of more than 20 minutes, in what has been his first operatic stage creation.

Forman's stage production stood out for its originality and abundance of creativity in what amounted to the recreation in Prague of the "spirit of Broadway".

A well-paid stroll fits perfectly within the Palau de les Arts' philosophy of embracing all musical trends and movements. In this sense, the opera house believes this work can attract a diverse and young audience, and at the same time become one of the sensations of the first season.