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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

The Diary of One Who Disappeared, by Leoš Janáček

Streaming on the Scottish Opera Web site

Anyone who has known the spell of Jenůfa, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropulos Case, or any other of Leoš Janáček’s full-length operas will fall for this 35-minute miniature, which inhabits a bubble of its own, part song cycle, part chamber drama. The Scottish Opera production, created for the Lammermuir Festival (that’s Lammermuir as in Lucia), stars the tenor Ed Lyon as the farmer’s lad lost to the song of a beautiful gypsy. The bare-boned staging steers clear of folkloric window dressing, but performers trace the emotional arc with mesmerizing assurance. —M.G.

Ed Lyon in “The Diary of One Who Disappeared.” Photo courtesy of the Scottish Opera.