Conductor, Jakub Hrůša; Jenůfa, Corinne Winters; Kostelničke a Buryjovka, Karita Mattila; Števa Buryja, Thomas Atkins; Laca Klemeň, Nicky Spence; Grandmother Buryjovka, Hanna Schwarz; Foreman, James Cleverton; Mayor, Jonathan Lemalu; Mayor’s Wife, Marie McLaughlin; Karolka, Valentina Puskás; Jana, Isabela Díaz
This is the 4th live performance I have heard of Jenufa in the last 4 years, and I am amazed I was 69 years old before I really understood what a great work it is. I saw this production in October 2021, when I queried some parts of the set design while enthusing about the musical aspects. It was much the same this time around. The wide-open set is excellent for producing unsettling phantasmagorical images on the back walls as in the silhouetted disapproving silent ladies of the second act or the cloudy images of tables and chairs of the third, but it had to be said the ENO’s claustrophobic set designs for their new production a year ago – all angles and points – seemed much more suited to plot and music. However, the personen regie of this Covent Garden production is excellent – never melodramatic, always seeming be truthful to what the music as well as the plot is saying. Such was its intensity and realism that someone in the Amphitheatre screamed when Laca slashed Jenufa across her cheek! The choral scenes with the folk music were expertly choreographed.
Musically the truly outstanding aspect of the performance was the orchestral playing conducted by Jakub Hrusa, the (from September) new musical director of ROHCG. The whole performance had more of a bounce, an energy, a swing to it – the brass sounded more edgy, the timpani louder, the woodwind more perky – than I’ve heard in other performances, while the solo violin and the full violin section at the end were sensationally passionate. ‘Idiomatic’ maybe sums it up in one sense but it just sounded more alive, more direct than how I’ve heard the work performed before. There seemed to be a bit of a love-in going on between the orchestra and Hrusa – they refused to stand up at the end and just sat applauding him……..
As in 2021, and with no diminution that I could hear in terms of vocal strength and characterisation, Karita Mattila was astonishing as the Kostelnička – an utterly gripping presence on stage and projecting her character’s good points (her love for Jenufa and her wish to see her happy) as well as her appalling judgement in killing the baby and subsequent remorse believably through her delivery of the music. Though perhaps without the full-on angst that Asmik Gregorian displayed in 2021, Corinne Winters was very good – her plight and her emotions completely believable. Nicky Spence repeated his appealing Laca from 2021 – I saw him sing Steva in the Rattle concert performance with the LSO maybe also a year ago, and he got more humorous swagger into the role than Thomas Atkins provided for this performance (but it was a fine performance – just not as intense as it could be, and with a voice maybe slightly on the small side for the house)
I can’t wait to hear The Excursions of Mr Broucek with Rattle and the LSO in the Spring……….Then it’s only ‘From the House of the Dead’ that I haven’t seen from Janacek’s operatic oeuvre (I believe I remember seeing Osud 20 years ago, coupled with Vaughan Williams Riders to the Sea at ENO, though I have no documentary evidence of this……..)
John's musical journey 