Janacek’s Jenufa, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 05.06.2022

My decision to buy a ticket to see the “new” production of Janacek’s Jenufa at the Berlin Staatsoper (it was actually premiered last year without an audience) is linked to the experience of watching Tatiana Gürbaca’s staging in Geneva. There, I wasn’t convinced by the way the title role was portrayed. As I had seen Asmik Grigorian only as Marie in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck this seemed to be a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Yet I need to speak of everything else before I can describe Ms. Grigorian’s performance. 

First we must talk about Damiano Michieletto’s production. In his interview in the program, he expressed his concern about the contrast between local and universal perspectives in a story so rich in details specific to its setting. Although we have seen stagings where the local folklore is used to add some color, most productions these days opt to show Jenufa as a story that could have happened in any context where having a baby out of wedlock is a catastrophic scenario. As much as Gürbaca, Michieletto goes a step further in terms of stylization. To be honest, she goes a step further – he goes a whole mile. The story is set in a cold storage room, where an iceberg gradually sinks in until it starts to thaw in the last act. I won’t lie – I don’t believe that this concept added anything to the story, which, yes, mentions ice in the very specific context of the death of Jenufa’s baby.  As it was, the cold lighting, the large sheets of transparent plastic and the gigantic iceberg had an alienating effect, as if these people were just Guinea pigs in a laboratory. It literally turned the dramatic temperature down. Also, I understand that the chorus couldn’t be on stage due to COVID protection measures, but they have been lifted and the director ought to have reviewed that decision. Act 1 with off-stage voices was completely nonsensical. Someone who had never seen this opera couldn’t have understood what was going on at all. Act 2 had many examples of people asking to be let in while they were already in – and Laca would need to be blind not to see the baby’s cradle right in the middle of the stage. And yet it was probably the most effective. In act 3, the director seemed happy enough playing with his own iceberg while almost everybody else at some point seemed to have to fend for themselves.

On the other hand, conductor Thomas Guggeis operated in a completely different universe, where emotionalism seemed to be the keyword. The underlining of particular turns of phrase seemed to be more important that the structural context in which these phrases were inserted, just like one hears in a performance of, say, Tosca or Cavalleria Rusticana. If Tomáš Hanus had a less exuberant orchestra in Geneva, his superior structural vision and control of it made his a performance of almost exemplary clarity and sense of atmosphere. Mr. Guggeis’s collections of moments did not amount to a coherent whole – and his verismo-ish conducting in the hall’s acoustics made it difficult for this cast to enunciate the text with clarity and still be heard. Even Evelyn Herlitzius and Hanna Schwarz, who were basically louder than everyone else, sounded strangely dry in tone. With one exception, every other singer had some trouble at some point in terms of being heard.

So now we’re back to Asmik Grigorian in the title role. In terms of tonal quality and phraseology, this Lithuanian soprano is here aptly cast. She produces as impression of youth and femininity even in the most outspoken moments. In her high register she always managed to pierce through, but the voice seemed to stay on stage rather than irradiate in the auditorium. In the first act, she seemed rather absent-minded. At some point, Steva says Jenufa has changed, that she is not playful and happy as she used to be. And yet one couldn’t imagine something like that by watching her acting this evening. As it was, act 2 showed her at her best, naturally bright in tone, unaffected and convincing in her expression of sadness and hopelessness. 

Although Evelyn Herlitzius’s performance was not essentially different from what she did in Geneva, it seemed somehow more efficient there first because the acoustics allowed more color in her voice and second because Tatiana Gürbaca did not demand from her so much fidgeting and contorting and moving about as here. And the result was ultimately more convincing. Stephan Rügamer’s tenor never was ear-friendly but it has become a bit weird in its extreme nasality. He did manage to project better than almost everyone else and was very hearable throughout. Yet one always has the impression that Mime somehow showed up in the wrong opera. In any case, he fared better than Alexey Dolgov (Steva), whose overly darkened voice lacked projection and, given a bizarre directorial choice, looked more kooky than alpha-male-ish.

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