DARK BUT POWERFUL
SFO’s production of Jenufa offers rare work by Czech composer
Leoš Janácek’s first masterpiece, Jenufa, opened at the Santa Fe Opera on Saturday evening with a generally solid production that took some time to coalesce in Act 1, improved markedly in Act 2 and ended with a strong Act 3. The most rewarding aspects of the evening were the restless, passionate and lyrical score, Richard Trey Smagur’s titanic portrayal of Števa and Patricia Racette’s superb first Kostelnicka, after many years as a highly acclaimed Jenufa.
In a plot that reads more like an episode of Law & Order than an early 20th-century opera, Jenufa, who is pregnant, is engaged to marry the drunken and philandering Števa when her stepmother declares he must stop drinking for a year before they can tie the knot. After lovelorn suitor Laca slashes Jenufa’s face in a fit of jealousy, Števa rejects her, sending her into hiding with her stepmother, the religiously righteous Kostelnicka. Worried for her stepdaughter’s dashed future and her own reputation, she does the unthinkable: She drowns the baby and tells Jenufa he died from an illness while she was wracked with fever. The baby’s body is discovered on the day of her wedding to a repentant Laca, and Kostelnicka confesses to the villagers, who are bent on killing Jenufa.
Can there possibly be a happy ending to all of this? Yes, of a sort.
Two major influences on the composer fused in Jenufa, his third opera and the one that cemented Janácek‘s place as the greatest Czech composer of the last century. The first was his interest in Moravian folk music, with its wide variety of keys, sharp alterations of emotion and structures that follow text patterns. The second was his continued study of everyday speech melodies and rhythms, which he jotted down in musical notation by the hundreds. His vivid and often unorthodox orchestration carries much of the melodic load. He applied his speech melody technique to the vocal lines, which are predominately declamatory but become more melodic as the emotional intensity rises.
Conductor Johannes Debus emphasized the score’s drama and conflict,
sometimes too much so, overbalancing the singers at times and missing opportunities for greater lyricism. The heartpounding sequence that ends Act 2, with the orchestra insistently repeating the rhythm of Kostelnicka’s last word, was devastating in its power, as was the enormous orchestral crescendo that accompanies her final exit, as she is led away to face certain execution for her crime.
Director David Alden’s production originated at the English National Opera in 2006. His concept features an updated setting, to the grim 1950s in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia, stark forced-perspective scenery that fractures into several pieces during the last act’s climactic moment, minimal furniture and props and lots of low-angled side lighting.
Overall, it strengthens even further the focus on the four leading characters and the role a claustrophobic environment plays in their psychological torments. Some of the opera’s important themes — the relationship to nature and the cycle of seasons in a rural community and issues of wealth, ownership and inheritance traditions — are virtually lost as a result of the update.
Unfortunately, the stark staging and climactic fracturing of the set have appeared already this summer in Così fan tutte and La bohème. They’re all justifiable choices for Jenufa, but it’s too bad these similarities surfaced in the same season.
Despite the two heinous crimes in Jenufa, its true theme is forgiveness and redemption. Alden’s direction drives toward the opera’s final, extraordinary seconds. Jenufa and Laca are kept physically far apart throughout Acts 2 and 3, emphasizing their doubts regarding their decision to marry. In an unusual and highly effective piece of staging, their first hesitant embrace happens in the last moments of the opera. Here, Janácek avoided the clichéd tradition of a soprano-tenor love duet by giving the soaring love theme to the orchestra alone, for the first time playing in the radiant key of E-flat Major. (Mozart made frequent use of the same key in The Magic Flute, with its analogous themes; Janácek’s use of it here is surely no coincidence.)
Many performers have seized on Kostelnicka as an opportunity for some all-star scenery-chewing. Not so Racette, who is secure in her character’s authority, moving serenely and making decisions clearly in line with her value systems: strong religious faith and an overwhelming desire to give her stepdaughter, Jenufa, a better and happier life than she’s had. Her transformation into a child-murderer is all the more horrific as a result. Racette’s arresting voice has acquired a bit of wear around the edges, which is perfect for Kostelnicka.
Laura Wilde, a former Santa Fe apprentice, achieved a heartrending vulnerability in Jenufa’s grief when the baby’s body is discovered. She sang well much of the time, although there were moments of blandness to her portrayal. Smagur, also a former apprentice, was towering physically and vocally as Števa, with his dangerous, magnetic sexuality masking the cowardice and immaturity that are eventually revealed at his character’s core.
Alexander Lewis’ Laca was very well acted, and he offered a strong contrast with Smagur in just about every particular, genuinely remorseful for having injured Jenufa and possessing an anchored moral center. More vocal heft in his most impassioned moments would have been welcome, but his singing was otherwise immediate and well varied.
The chorus of apprentices sang well, after a messy-sounding off-stage start and several of them stepped forward to offer vivid portrayals of individual villagers. Kudos go to Jana McIntyre as the shepherd boy Jano, Alan Higgs and Kathleen Reveille as the mayor and his wife and Katherine Beck as their daughter.
Czech composers have been scandalously underrepresented during the Santa Fe Opera’s 63-year history, with only two productions from this important repertory: the American premiere of The Cunning Little Vixen in 1975 and Káta Kabanová in 2003. Now, with Jenufa and Antonin Dvorák’s Rusalka on next summer’s bill, matters are looking brighter. A return of The Cunning Little Vixen, perfect for our outdoor venue, is long overdue, as is the most obvious choice, Bedrich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Or, for a real rarity, how about Jaromir Weinberger’s charming Schwanda the Bagpiper?