((c) ROH 2021)

The first new production of the Royal Opera House Leo Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in over twenty years was one of the first victims of the 2020 foreclosure, suspended about to open in March of the same year. A star-studded cast made this a particularly hot post at the time, especially given the involvement of imaginative German director Claus Guth, and they are (with few exceptions) now reunited for a psychologically incisive and richly sung realization of this. emotionally burning work. The libretto is the composer’s own, but according to Gabriel Preissova‘s “Její pastorkyňa, ”a story of Moravian infanticide and weak, hypocritical men – exactly the kind of sour satire Janáček has repeatedly drawn to.

A highly anticipated production

Guth renounces realism, although the costumes and accessories remain in the 19th century. The mill and the village disappear in favor of a stripped off-white space, at the bottom and on the sides of which the toil and the routine of the daily life of the village are played out (men and women come and go, dressed identically) . The back wall hosts video projections in act two (from the rocafilm duo) – stars as Jenůfa prays for her baby, a flurry of snow, sometimes the tangled shapes of her wire prison. In the third act, the vast empty space of the stage is strewn with flowers, and the characters pose against the back wall, motionless, as in old photographs, which gives the scene an alienated coldness; Jenůfa and Laca turn their backs on us, apparently to a world far from everyone.

Blocking is simple but serves the right emotional rhythms; Guth brilliantly captured the complex interiority of opera and the Freudian intensities. Dancers appear in act one to celebrate Števa’s abandonment for military service, hoisting and pulling a disengaged and frustrated Jenůfa – even the breaks in the routine that a party brings are just another way to get through the dark movements of the city, which offer little food for its women. As the Kostelnička explains the dangers of drunkards like Števa, a vision of her own deceased and abusive husband is staged alongside Števa’s preponderance of cruelty.

It’s a relatively tame thing on the part of the man who posed “La bohème” on the moon. But Guth’s clarity of vision lets the opera’s symbolic and psychological register shine through, as well as the emotional rawness essential to Janáček’s dramas.

There is a precision and economy in the scenic images that capture the ritual that Guth sees at the heart of the work. The men and women of the town perform their usual comings and goings in identity formation as act one unfolds, in rows of regimented beds at the back of the stage which summons both the provincial workhouse and Barracks. The bed frames become a metal cage in which Jenůfa is locked with her baby in act two; the mattresses piled up like boulders of frozen winter ice – images that capture the emotional sterility and patriarchal capture of Jenůfa and Kostelnička’s life. As Jenůfa decides to kill Jenůfa’s baby, she is stalked by a raven-like figure wearing a terrifying headdress, as if it were an arcane ritual.

Is there any heaviness here? Yes, to an extent – but it certainly beats the kind of bucolic clutter that directors turn to too often to stage the work. The choice details in the design and costume provide thematic and emotional focus and prevent it from encountering an abstract (equally unwanted) wash. The female choirs of act three wear shimmering and luminous country dresses – costumes by Gesine Völlm – whose colored panels are sewn onto black fabric, evoking the serious corvids of act two, but also the primordial costumes of Nicholas Roerich for “The Rite of Spring”.

Each act opens with a semi-curtain made of wooden shutters, through which the light dances, and beyond which Jenůfa and Laca walk in the last moments – as if to break the veil of shame, secrecy and privation which are the iron laws of this community. It’s a disarming and low-key ending that lets the radiant and revealing music do the talking, as two wounded people walk with dignity and quiet humanity to face the audience, unashamed – as if to challenge our world to the same extremes of forgiveness and reconciliation. that Janáček gathers in the work. Michael Levine and James Farncombe’s streaked designs and taut lighting owe a lot to the domestic installations of Mona Hatoum and Damian Ortega.

A solid cast

Nicky Spence is a very experienced Števa – he also recorded Janáček’s song cycle “Diaries of a Disappeared” with great success – but made his debut as Laca. He is a brilliantly voiced tenor with a supple, tight voice that is suitable for difficult recording and the energetic text of Janáček’s ensembles. But this is tempered by a surprising tenderness and a soft-grained quality that grows as the opera progresses, in keeping with Laca’s personal softening – quite different from the wicked and jealous man of the overture. . Every now and then, Spence seemed a little hungry, but that may have been due to too much enthusiasm on the part of the pit. But her warmth and flexibility in the opera’s final scene – and her staunch defense of Jenůfa in the face of the crowd just before – was deeply moving.

Asmik Grigorian holds the title role, singing with verve and panache. Hers is a powerful instrument, with a lot of sparkle and brilliance, though its resources are carefully distributed throughout the performance, its delicacy and warmth expended generously. Jenůfa’s act two prayer was – as always – a highlight, slowly burning to its exultant climax. There is a crystalline clarity in her voice, whether strong or soft, which works particularly well in the duets of this opera, whether with Spence or Kostelnička by Karita Mattila – a further point of moral courage and ethical wisdom. who goes through the weaknesses of those around him his.

Mattila’s Kostelnička was simply exceptional. With Guth’s help, she offers a remarkably sympathetic and necessarily complex characterization of a figure whose cruelty comes from the violence and wickedness she herself suffered; his guilt and shame are palpable in act three, though never exaggerated, and his decision to kill Jenůfa’s baby feels like the culmination of a terrible fall rather than a moment of meanness, no matter how mean- he. Her voice is perfectly suited to the role – there is an always velvety legato counterbalanced by moments of throaty despair, and her caring, lived-in quality is the perfect replica of Grigorian’s glassy luminosity. Surely we have already seen one of the outstanding performances of the season.

Saimir Pirgu’s Števa was bugle-bellied and full of vocal bluster, easily cutting through lush orchestral textures; his vocal bravado was offset by a two act portrayal of a weak and fearful man, reduced to the waist by Kostelnička. Jacquelyn Stucker was a tangy and genuine Karolka, whose distress to learn of Števa’s failure is a brief but well-judged moment of human grief; it is a microcosm of the excellent staging that underlies the show. David Stout’s Foreman is sturdy and rich in tone – except for the grunted last line of act one, where the cover makes it look like he’s about to pull away from the whole town. Elena Zilio has a nice ride as a grandmother.

Henrik Nánási led the action from the pit, drawing inspiration from the lavish playing of the ROH orchestra and favoring the romantic sweep rather than the modernist bite of Janáček’s score. There is no doubt that the latter lacked a production as rigorously stripped down as this one, and alongside performances of such vocal intensity, especially at the climax of act two, which called for a bit more. of ferocity.

Some balance issues sometimes meant occluded vocals, in the cases of Grigorian and Spence at least, but these will surely be smoothed out as the race progresses. And there were a lot of orchestral highlights. Vasko Vassilev’s violin solos in act two touched the raw emotional nerves of the stage without falling into rudeness or cracking; the dances in act three had a rhythmic pulse and rustic pleasure galore; and the xylophone leads Dance of Death of the opera’s opening waltz was by turns dazed and menacing. An incisive and captivating interpretation of one of opera’s most complex tragedies – it should keep running.