WNO: Jenufa
JENUFA and Madam Butterfly, operas which feature ladies faced with great tragedy, bookend the three operas which the WNO brings to the Bristol Hippodrome this spring – with Mozart‘s great opera Don Giovanni providing the gourmet filling in the sandwich.
Leos Janacek can really claim Jenufa as a work of his own, having composed the music, written the lyrics and libretto.
Katie Mitchell’s highly praised original 1998 production of this powerful story of love, honour, betrayal, infanticide, and redemption receives a fresh coat of paint in the hands of director Eloise Lally.
Set in a close-knit village community similar to the area of Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire, that the composer was born in, there are strong similarities to the cities and villages now being destroyed and displacing whole communities in Ukraine.
Conductor Tomas Hanus took the unusual step of addressing the audience before the opera began, dedicating the
performance to those caught up in this terrible conflict hoping that in these troubled timed the production would provide “an island of beauty and humanity”.
He went on, with the willing assistance of the WNO Orchestra, to throw himself wholeheartedly into the business of drawing every last ounce of emotion from Janacek’s score. Often he became as much, at times, even more emotionally involved in this harrowing tale of love and betrayal as those on stage.
In this narrative opera there are no great show piece aria’s for the singers to demonstrate their vocal talents, they have to rely on an ability as actors to bring out the full flavour of their characters.
And no one did this better than Eliska Weissova as Kosteinicka, who scarifies her place in heaven by killing her unmarried stepdaughter Jenufa’s new-born baby to save her from humiliation and shame.
Elizabeth Llewellyn literally trod on acting egg shells at times as she conveyed the confusion in this young women’s mind. She was abused by Rhodri Prys Jones’ decidedly selfish Steve, father of her child, and loved then abused and again loved by Peter Berger’s Laca, a man eaten by doubts and lack of self-confidence.
Early in the piece, when the drunken braggart Steve brings a large group home to celebrate in his mill, the WNO chorus had the chance to spread their vocal wings and did so in fine style.
They also created some finely drawn cameo characters among the rowdy gang who arrived to take advantage of Steve’s free hospitality.
If you have never seen Jenufa I will not reveal the ending, one which has a slightly different twist to it than you might expect.