It is almost a surprise to myself how much I enjoy every performance of Janacek’s Jenufa, regardless of how good it actually is. No other opera in the repertoire speaks so readily to the heart. This means that it is actually hard to have an objective view, but I’ll try.
This is only the second time I see a staging by Tatiana Gürbaca, and I have to say she has a very organized mind. Every scenic element on stage is there for a reason and everything relates to the main concept in an almost mathematical way. This also means that they tend to the cerebral – and Jenufa is a work supposed to speak directly to the heart. My first impression this evening was that the single set was too Scandinavian, too conceptual and too designed. Gradually it made sense in its claustrophobic atmosphere, in the way it highlighted the acting and, most of all, how efficiently it worked for every scene, regardless of outdoor or indoor circumstances or of how many people were involved. All that means that you had no distractions; the director made you look at the actors in an almost microscopic way. The problem is that you need real actors in circumstances like that.
I cannot put my finger on what was wrong with Corinne Winters’s Jenufa -or even if what was wrong was a directorial choice. At least for me, a key element of the role is the vulnerability and how in the end it turns out to be a strength rather than a weakness. And to my eyes, Ms. Winters looked puzzlingly self-possessed and in charge throughout the opera. She seemed piqued rather than desperate with the prospect of being a single mother in act 1, she delivered the text about death being the best thing for the baby as if she actually believed that, she smiled too much and too openly when Laca appears to propose and, in act 3, she looked almost happy in preparation for her wedding. And then in the end, when she should behave as if she had an epiphany or something like that, there is very little contrast for one to notice the transformation. In a sense, it seemed that the opera was being performed around her rather than with her. Vocally, I must say that hers is not the voice I expect in the role. It lacks naturalness in its constructed tonal plushness that prevents her high notes to generate any radiance (or dynamic contrast). This only reinforced this sense of self-containment and discretion. This does not mean she did not sing well – she is a musicianly singer who does nothing wrong, but it felt like listening to music for the violin played in a viola.
Sharing the stage with Evelyn Herlitzius did not make it easier for her. This German soprano is used to dramatic roles and has no problem in living up to the intensity of a scene. And she does it quite naturally. Her big act 2 monologue, for instance, felt especially disturbing. The way this Kostelnicka spoke of killing a baby was almost like the way a farmer explains why one put a calf “to sleep”. For some reason, this is a role often cast with a singer no longer in her prime. On paper, that’s the case of Ms. Herlitzius. That said, it sits in all the sweet spots of her voice – and this is probably the healthiest singing I have heard from her in a while. It has always been an odd voice – and you’ll find all its hallmark peculiarities here. But – once you’re not hearing a “normal voice” in the part (I mean – and I’m repeating myself here – like Eva Randová’s in the MacKerraa studio recording) – Herlitzius’s “oddity” makes sense.
An important part of the success of a performance of Jenufa has to do with the contrast between the tenors cast as Laca and Steva. Traditionally, Steva’s handsomeness is portrayed by an Italianate tone, while Laca’s inaptitude gets a more typicality tight “Slavic” sound. This evening, the contrast was alright there, but in a rather surprising way. Our Laca, American Heldentenor Daniel Brenna, sang with stentorian power, flashing Siegfried-ian big high notes in the auditorium with no effort. I can’t say how good an actor he is, but he looked convincing in his naturalness. Sometimes when Laca is made to sound like Mime, it is difficult to understand Jenufa’s change of opinion of him. It has been a while since I last heard Ladislav Elgr. I had the memory of a lyric, rather dulcet voice. This evening his sing was more angular and metallic, what made the character’s less appealing side more evident. All minor roles were well cast – both in terms of singing and acting.
This is the second time I hear Tomáš Hanus conduct Jenufa. Last time I wrote about an apparent attempt of reining the orchestra to help the cast. That was not the case this evening. The hall has rather dry acoustic, but one could feel nonetheless the volume of orchestral sound. Mr. Hanus has a long experience with the work, and one can hear it in the way each scene got its precise color and pace while at the same time it all connected in an organic and coherent way.
I was there!!
I thought it was a pretty solid evening on the whole. I appreciated the production a lot, though I could have used more visceral intensity and I thought the direction of the chorus was weirdly uneven. Sometimes it was great and other times non-existent. I felt somewhat similarly about Hanus’ conducting, although I thought he did a terrific job in act one, which can trip a lot of conductors up, and that he was very attentive to the singers. The clarity of the words was impressive. I did think he could have afforded to let the orchestra rip in act two, Herltizius certainly is lacking for nothing in sheer decibels. I thought the tenors were terrific, and I had actually seen Brenna do a poor-ish job in the role years ago so this was a definite improvement. Laca is IMO only marginally less interesting than the two leading ladies and while I think it can be challenging to understand Jenufa’s change of heart about him, I think his remorse for what he’s done is captured so perfectly by Janacek (his monologue near the beginning of act three is an underrated moment in the score) I think a good production with good performers can make it work.
I think I liked Winters *marginally* more than you did, but I had the exact same reservations that you did and which weirdly mirrored how I felt about Grigorian in the recent ROH production. It was so understated and almost severe and that was mirrored by her singing. She was almost to Kost-like if that makes sense. I like tough Jenufa’s (Mattila) but there needs to be more of a sense of tragic impact and perseverance in the face of that and Winters was pretty much at an even keel the whole time. She’s not a bad actor at all, but there was definitely something missing. I thought her voice opened up beautifully in the prayer and that was where she gave the most. But (just like Grigorian in London) the moment the Kost. came back on, Winters retreated back into her shell. I think she has a beautiful voice but it did lack float generally and seemed to persistently go a hair flat.
Herltizius was terrific. I saw her role debut a few years back and thought it was mostly generic caterwauling. But here I thought she combined the intensity of a Rysanek with the starkness of a Silja so that the performance was dramatic without being campy and sympathetic without being sentimental. She also sounded pretty good, though the top is shot at this point, and managed to sing at a dynamic that wasn’t just loud.
What an amazing opera.
Hey, Peter! Great to know that you were there too!
As I have written, I have seen only two stagings by Tatiana Gürbaca. Both times I found the overall concept very good, but whenever we needed some true intensity, they hanged fire. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or if there’s some communication problem – it is just that both times one felt a complete emotional disconnection in key moments.
As for Hanus, I don’t know – I don’t think that the combination orchestra+acoustics in Geneva is optimal and I somehow took that in consideration when I wrote about his conducting. I guess he could have done something closer to what you had in mind somewhere else – Dresden, for instance.
No doubt that Laca is the third role in importance in the plot, we agree. Steva requires far less imagination. That said, I really liked the act 2 Konstelnicka/Steva scene. Ladislav Elgr did it really well. We could feel how he was first heartbroken with the situation involving the boy and Jenufa and then how slowly he pictured how miserable HE himself would be and finally – for his own shame – that he actually cared more about his own welfare. It was really three-dimensional.
Jenufa is a very special story – and the whole affair involving Jenufa and Laca is curiously realistic if a bit hard to believe as literature. I thought Brenna’s personality is well-suited to the part, and he was well directed too. There was always this ebb and flow of intensity in his acting. Whenever he was harsh with Jenufa, he always immediately seemed to regret. And I liked the fact that – in this production – Jenufa responds more to him than in other stagings, where Jenufa generally hardly seems to notice he is even there, as if he were an annoying fly buzzing around while she is waiting for Steva.
I have never seen Grigorian as Jenufa – and if things go as planned, I might finally check that item in my list next month. I think you have raised an important point – the director says in her interview in the program that she wanted to stress the fact that there are similarities between Kostelnicka and Jenufa. The grandmother even says that both of them have a “masculine way of thinking”. I agree with that – but I don’t think that this collides with their vulnerability at all. After all, it is a very delicate situation for a woman to have a mind of her own in a world where nobody is ready to accept that. Formidable as the Kostelnicka is, she was victim of domestic abuse and, when things go south, she is hardly in control at all. In that sense, Jenufa – although she indulges in being “silly” in the beginning – displays superior objectivity. Her reaction to the horrible things that happen to her is amazingly sensible. So I can see that what Corinne Winters did had to do with directorial choices. I just think that they didn’t work for Winters. It is important for a director to make their concepts organic in a way that they make sense for the actor/singer. If not, it’s just like puppetry and end up feeling like it felt in this Jenufa: soulless. I agree that the prayer was Winters’s best moment (even if the voice didn’t truly float and was a tad flat at times, as you pointed out), because it’s the moment she can be 100% vulnerable and the director might have given a little bit more leeway to be herself. I personally find that this scene gains a lot if sung with a little bit more angst. The baby is gone, she knows something bad happened and I don’t think her prayer means that she has any hope of a positive outcome there. It’s just that there’s nothing else she could do at that point.
We agree entirely about Herlitzius – I didn’t expect her to be so right for the part. I was afraid that the voice would sound a bit more worn and that she would have done something more over-the-top. But no – she was right on the mark in terms of intensity and nuance (even vocally – as you remarked, there was far more soft singing than what one could have expected). And I liked her acting in the last act. Some Kostelnickas look basically demented by then. With Herlitzius, one could see that there were conflicting emotions. She seemed genuinely happy for Jenufa and that seemed to offset a bit of her personal torment.
Again, I find Jenufa a very special work. Once I had the opportunity of taking a friend to see opera for the first time, and it happened to be Jenufa (it was what was on – there wasn’t anything to decide). Normally you’d chose La Bohème or Carmen, but ok, Jenufa was it. And my friend just loved it. She said she never imagined opera could be so convincing, so relatable (and she wasn’t even able to read the subtitles in German or understand the text in Czech).
I took a friend to Jenufa as their first opera with Rysanek and Benackova, with Charles M. conducting. I don’t think they ever became an opera fan but they still talk about that evening.
Mattila’s prayer remains my favorite because the sheer intensity of a woman realizing her baby is not in the room with her was mindboggling to see and hear. And when she sang the actual prayer there was a deep sense of foreboding. You got the feeling deep down Jenufa knew somehow that something truly horrible had happened despite what she was telling herself.
Mattila played Jenufa as earthy, tough, and smart. She seemed emotionally mature. So when she was confronted with her baby’s death and the shock hit her so forcefully, you felt this person being permanently altered. The character’s core strength and essential goodness were still there, it was still clear what that these back to back to back traumas had changed her. That’s what I always loved about Mattila at her best, the forcefulness of her persona with a real emotional vulnerability deep down. Perfect for Jenufa.
Winters just seemed SO sensible and while she didn’t take everything in stride, there was a hardness to her that made it seem like she just expected and was ready to accept the worse.
You have just hit the nerve here, Peter – there has to be an alteration in the character. She was pretty, she was having fun, she thought she knew better than anybody else (including her stepmother) – and suddenly everything goes really awry, especially the baby’s death after months of lockdown. And in the end there is also a second degree of transformation: when she realizes that she could actually grow and develop from those terrible lessons. In this production (I don’t want Winters to bear all the responsibility for that – she might have even just followed the direction), the character sails through the whole thing without any visible transformation. And the story is about the transformation. I can imagine Mattila as an ideal Jenufa – I only have the audio and found her really good in it. She has very good instincts as an actress – and the voice has a tonal palette wide enough to show the character’s development.
I just don’t like it when Jenufa is a sort of passive victim, which is the opposite of what Winter’s did. Benackova sang so beautifully that it didn’t matter, but she was so soft and sweet and maidenly that the setup for the character in act one didn’t make sense. So Mattila scored big points for me in that regard.
The thing is all of the roles in the opera are amazing and obviously Kost. is an absolutely remarkable creation. But Jenufa as a character approaches the profound imo. The fact that Janacek creates this character who suffers so terrible and somehow make her forgiveness and strength seem plausible and realistic is something that I‘be never understood. When you just sum up the plot Jenufa seems either to be cloying, naive or a masochist. But that never happens when you’re actually watching the opera.
The way the story is written, I would say that, yes, you could have a passive Jenufa – the only thing that is a no-no is to show the character uniformly passive during the whole opera, for there has to be some transformation in her after all the tragedies she goes through. After all, in the last scene, it is clear she is doing something about her life: most probably leaving town. For instance, in the video from Glyndebourne, I find the way Roberta Alexander does it quite coherent. In act 1, she is quite girly although we can see it is a bit of an act. In act 2, it is an act of another kind. She is deep inside desperate, but she acts as if everything is all right. Especially because Silja is a bit scary and – in Jenufa’s place, I myself would avoid confrontation with someone so intense and on whom I depended for everything. When she confirms that the baby is dead, she enters some kind of zombie-state that goes until the closing scene, when she seems to wake up from that trance. I find it a difficult balance the way Lehnhoff, Alexander and SIlja do it, but it works out fine, I’d say. It’s not my favorite production, but it shows the main character in a rather “traditional” way without making her a complete cipher.
The whole Laca/Jenufa affair is always hard to explain, unless you resort to marginalization. It is a small town, and Laca is labelled a looser from moment zero. Jenufa has the impression that she belongs to the A-team, because of her personal beauty and family connections, and she doesn’t feel that her stepmother’s advice applies to her (after all, the Kostelnicka was married out of convenience in an age nobody would have proposed to her unless in very unfavourable circumstances as those). The misstep with Steva makes her as much a pariah as Laca – and maybe that is what makes her finally see why Laca behaves the way he does and establishes a connection between them. In the end, we see both of them are above the small-world mentality in their village. The moment they set foot on the road, they’re basically free. She’ll pay a far higher price for that “freedom” than him, of course. Gürbaca, in the booklet, says an insightful thing – that the reason for the most horrible events in the plot are love. So, the only two people who truly love Jenufa are those who commit serious crimes against her. And yet they stay at her side when everybody else leaves – so it’s a hard balance for her to make. She forgives Laca and the Kostelnicka and she doesn’t leave them either. And yet this is something you only understand in the level of emotions. Rationally it still doesn’t make complete sense – and that is you have to see it staged to get it.