Janacek’s Jenufa is no ordinary opera. Instead of the usual plot of boy-meets-girl, they fall in love, girl dies, it has the far more intensely dramatic storyline of rich-alcoholic-yob-meets-girl, girl’s step-mum won’t let her marry him, girl admits she’s pregnant, mum hides girl away, girl gives birth, mum kills baby, mum goes mad, dead baby is discovered on girl’s wedding day.
The emotions of the story outdo almost anything else seen on the opera stage, and Janacek’s music enhances it all magnificently.
The composer has a brilliantly effective way of writing music that lets the orchestra seize on the emotions of the onstage action and develop their intensity.
At two moments in particular, the volume of both the singing and orchestral music rise as the tension increases to a peak which is followed by total silence.
The impact of that silence is huge, bringing those rare moments when nobody in the audience coughs or makes any noise whatsoever.
When done properly, this is a true pin-dropping silence and with Mark Wigglesworth conducting, it is done to perfection.
He even kept the silence going for an achingly long time, with no-one daring to move.
This was as impressive as the same conductor’s brilliantly powerful interpretation at the English National Opera of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, showing again his mastery of 20th century Eastern European composers.
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His resignation earlier this year as ENO’s Music Director represented a great loss to the company and it is to be hoped that his association with them as occasional conductor will continue.
The cast of Jenufa lived up to the same high standards. Laura Wilde as Jenufa herself sang beautifully and acted the role with total conviction while Michaela Martens, as her stepmother, the Kostelnichka (wife of a parish sexton), belted out the high notes even more convincingly and gave a brilliant display of stepmotherly firmness turning into murder, guilt and madness.
Jenufa was as impressive as the same conductor’s brilliantly powerful Lady of Macbeth of Mtsensk
Those are the two main roles of the opera, but with Nicky Spence as Steva (the rich, drunk yob) and Peter Hoare as Laca (the good and honest but over-emotional fellow who has always been in love with Jenufa) the whole story is beautifully sung and acted by both the principals and the rest of the cast.
With the stark sets of David Alden’s production adding to the power of the production, this all adds up to an extraordinarily effective performance of a drainingly emotional opera.
Jenufa was an extraordinarily effective performance of a drainingly emotional opera
Highly recommended – but be aware that Janacek was not the sort of fellow to write pretty tunes, which would have been totally out of place in this story anyway.
Box Office: 020 7845 9300 or www.eno.org (showing until July 8)
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