Of all Janáček’s operas, The Excursions of Mr Brouček is the toughest for non-Czechs to get their ears around. Not only can the busy word-setting feel hectic, the storyline only really comes to life on stage where its humour stands the best chance of landing. Unsurprisingly it’s the composer’s least-often heard opera on disc, making this fairly revelatory new recording from the Prague National Theatre under Jaroslav Kyzlink doubly welcome. 

In typically maverick fashion, Janáček chose to celebrate the Czech Republic’s newly attained liberation from the Austro-Hungarian Empire not with a dip into the country’s mythic past or a love letter to St Wenceslaus, but with a pair of outlandish episodes in the inglorious career of a boorishly drunken landlord in 19th-century Prague. The storylines are taken from novels by the popular writer Svatopluk Čech.

Over two acts, Mr Brouček, middle-aged, portly, small-minded and cowardly, is transported in a semi-alcoholic haze first to the moon and then back in time to the 15th-century Hussite Wars. In the first, Janáček uses his encounters with a range of ditzy lunar poets and musicians to puncture...