Bell Shakespeare and the ACO breathe life into the musings of Janáček, Smetana, and Mozart.

“Initially they looked like two old tomes of letters, but once I got into them it became a bit of a page-turner. You get really involved in their lives, because one would write a letter, and then you’d want to read the response.”

It might seem like a daunting feat, but Susanna Dowling has read over 700 personal, handwritten letters. After blowing the dust from the surface, she is now preparing to breathe life into these “florid” musings in an intriguing music theatre collaboration. It’s called Intimate Letters, and showcases the words and music of three composers: Janáček, Smetana, and Mozart.

“The letters were written around the time that each composer wrote the music [featured in the performance], so the theme is very much what was going on in the mind or the style of the composer at the time – so you sort of get the emotional undercurrent.” said Dowling, who is Bell Shakespeare’s Director in Residence.

Not only does the emotional undercurrent provide context to each musical work, but it also drives the performance as a whole. Janáček wrote obsessively to his love, Kamila...