Janáček
Jenůfa – opera in three Acts to a libretto by the composer after the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová [Brno version, ed. Sir Charles Mackerras & Dr John Tyrrell; sung in Czech with English surtitles]
Jenůfa – Elizabeth Llewellyn
Laca Klemeň – Peter Auty
Števa Buryja – Rhodri Prys Jones
Kostelnička Buryjovka – Angela Denoke
Stárek – Aaron O’Hare
Mayor – Sion Goronwy
Barena – Rosie Hay
Grandmother Buryjovka – Sian Meinir
Mayor’s Wife – Helen Jarmany
Karolka – Francesca Saracino
Neighbour – Sarah Pope
Jana – Isabelle Peters
Child – Gabriella Rees-Blades & Macsen Ellis
Chorus & Orchestra of Welsh National Opera
Tomáš Hanus
Katie Mitchell – Director
Eloise Lally – Revival director
Vicki Mortimer – Designer
Nigel J Edwards – Lighting designer
Struan Leslie – Movement director
Kevin McCurdy – Fight director
Reviewed by: Curtis Rogers
Reviewed: 25 March, 2022
Venue: Milton Keynes Theatre, England
Janáček is certainly having his moment in opera houses around the UK. Both Welsh National Opera and the Royal Opera House are working through a series of his stage works, and The Cunning Little Vixen in particular has become almost ubiquitous, having been seen at various venues within the last few years (both in regular theatres and summer opera festivals) most recently in a new production by English National Opera. After the interruption of the pandemic, this season has seen both WNO and ROH present Jenůfa, in the case of the former reviving a production by Katie Mitchell first seen in 1998 and directed for this run by Eloise Lally.
Unlike Claus Guth’s new production at Covent Garden, Mitchell’s presents the narrative of Jenůfa’s extraordinary resilience within a generally realist setting, contemporary with the opera’s compositions. Each Act is confined within an appropriate, austere interior (the Buryja family mill, and two parts of Kostelnička’s cottage respectively) and the oppressive narrow-mindedness of Jenůfa’s relatives and peers is further emphasised by limiting the action within those box-like frames, blocked off from the rest of the stage and eliminating any extraneous space. Only at the very end does an alternative reality intrude, in which a brief, moving vision is shown (to the audience alone) of Kostelnička playing among a bed of flowers with a toddler, presumably the same baby of Jenůfa’s whom she had murdered, now a little older – hinting at the life and freedom that would flourish if the rest of her community were also capable of her strong benevolence and forgiveness.
Claustrophobic as the sets may deliberately be, the choreography is such that attention remains fixed on Jenůfa in the scenes in which she appears, not as some superhuman figure on the one hand, nor a stereotypically passive, suffering woman on the other, but a profoundly human being whose dignity and forbearance ultimately radiates through and transforms the petty suspicions, hypocrisies, and mindsets of those around her. Mitchell’s notion of her is much less provocative than that of Handel’s Theodora in her recent, successful interpretation of that work for ROH, but is no less striking for that. Elizabeth Llewellyn embodies the role superbly, both in her unflinching demeanour and in eloquent singing that somehow manages both to suggest vulnerability and resolve.
Angela Denoke is quite as commanding a presence, dramatically and musically, as Kostelnička, but exudes an appropriately steely edge to her singing, characterising her harder-headed nature, though still capturing a sense of motherly concern for her stepdaughter Jenůfa, however warped her conceptions of honour are which lead her to commit the horrific act she does.
Providing a telling counterpart to the tightly-drawn relationship between these two central women of the drama, is the equally compelling, complimentary performances by Peter Auty and Rhodri Prys Jones as the two half-brothers who, in their different ways, vie for Jenůfa’s attention. Auty is vociferous but anxious as Laca, lacking the chutzpah of Števa who boasts of his success with women, though Jones expresses that with some mellifluousness rather than mere swagger alone. Among the smaller roles Aaron O’Hare may be singled out for his confident account of Stárek, and Sion Goronwy for his quiet authority as the Mayor.
Tomáš Hanus conducts the WNO Orchestra in a nobly alert account of the score. On the one hand it frequently emanates a sustained, lyrical warmth, not least in the resounding theme from the trumpet in the concluding bars that rings in the ears for some time afterwards, setting the seal on a finely paced performance throughout. On the other, it doesn’t simply or purposelessly luxuriate in orchestral timbre for its own sake but is marked convincingly by the robust vigour of Janáček’s tersely motivic musical language which constantly evolves according to its own spontaneous logic. The eerie, spacious prelude, underlined by the ticking xylophone – apparently portending something sinister – opens out into a more positive and dynamic sweep of music which seems as though running parallel with the drama if not exactly illustrating it, until it converges ineluctably with the magnanimous climax of Jenůfa’s forgiveness of Kostelnička and decision to align her love with Laca’s. Combined with the animated singing of the WNO Chorus, this interpretation of Janáček’s first operatic masterpiece is shot through with the humanity and respect for personal freedom which Hanus identified before commencing this performance, referring to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Further performances at various locations to May 10
