Kamila Stösslová

The composer Leoš Janáček, upon meeting her in 1917 in the Moravian resort town of Luhačovice, fell deeply in love with her, despite the fact that both of them were married, and that he was almost forty years older than she was.

[citation needed] Janáček arrived in the resort on 3 July 1917 (he preferred Luhačovice over other spas due to its proximity to his house in Brno).

Despite her ambivalence about his feelings for her, Janáček was inspired by her to create the lead characters of two of his operas: Káťa in Katya Kabanová and Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Affair.

[2] He acknowledged her as the inspiration for the former opera, telling her in a letter that "I saw for the first time how a woman can love her husband… that was the reason why I took up Kát’a Kabanová and composed it".

In the award-winning TV film In Search of Janáček, written and directed by Petr Kaňka, her character was performed by Zuzana Vejvodová.