Confession, repentance, and forgiveness are in woefully short supply in today’s world. So it comes as no small pleasure to find them the bedrocks upon which Leos Janacek built his amazing opera, now wowing audiences at the Lyric Opera
The Moravian composer Leos Janacek (1854-1928) would be called a “late-bloomer” in today’s slang.
He was fifty years old when his first opera Jenufa was finally performed. Perhaps because he was raised in a rural village rather than in a Czech cultural center, music as a career dawned on him rather late.. His parents sent him to Brno ‘s monastery when he was eleven years old to live as a chorister. In Brno he took part in a production of Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophete in the area’s German theater.
Music became his passion. He followed the family tradition to become a music teacher. His composition, Jenufa took nine years to write. In 1915 his friends launched a campaign to get it produced in Prague. He found overnight success in 1916.
Until Jenůfa, a frank depiction of the fate of an unwed mother in a provincial Moravian village, Janáček wrote almost nothing that is still performed today. After it, he embarked on an astonishingly prolific decade. Each of his opera’s work is composed in Janáček’s wholly original style, influenced by the distinct cadences of the Czech language and based on an otherworldly sense of harmony that is at once as fresh and invigorating as a Moravian folk melody.
“Janáček’s music sounds as if a Martian was trying to write nineteenth-century tonal music. It’s right—but not quite right. There is just enough “wrong” to set it apart from the run of the mill. Janáček’s chord progressions never seem to go where you expect them to; what may start as a conventional harmonic rhythm will suddenly veer off into something totally surprising and original. Janáček’s music demands attention—not because it’s so innately complicated but because it’s so delightfully quirky. Maybe that’s the wrong word. It sounds too flippant, as if Janáček were humorous. Strange his music sometimes is, but it is far more: deep, heartfelt, passionate.[i]
By the time of Janacek’s death Jenufa had been performed in more than sixty theaters outside of Czechoslovakia.
The Kostelnicka, or “The Stepmother” was the title of Pressova’s play, which Janacek transformed for the lyric theater. She represents the primary force behind the tragic events of Jenufa: Her moral power is exercised early in the first act when she forbids Steva from marrying Jenufa for one year, during which time he must refrain from drinking and become a model of decency and good behavior. Steva’s drinking problem recalled the Kostelnicka’s dilemma from her own past marriage; her late husband’s continual drunkenness destroyed their marriage, and she fears that Steva may have inherited those same menacing traits. Jenufa’s out of wedlock pregnancy has shaken the very foundations of her foster mother’s sense of self-respect — and even her morality . At the beginning of the second act she reveals that she has been experiencing emotional anguish and disgrace: “I was so proud! Oh! How proud I was of you!” And of course, we know pride goeth before the fall. And fall she does
The Kostelnicka’s humiliation and desperation has driven her to mental and moral collapse — she is actually considering murder — the killing of Jenufa’s baby. She reveals that she suffered twenty weeks of mental anguish as she waited for the birth of the child: the shutters were closed to keep Jenufa’s condition secret, and she passionately prayed for God to deliver a stillborn child — the birth of a strong, healthy baby contradicted her prayers, and its birth became a traumatic event for her. Jenufa’s tenderness toward the child contrasts with her foster mother’s despair: the Kostelnicka has become obsessed with the child’s death: “Pray that God will take him from you!”
The Kostelnicka finally reasons that her only option is to shame Steva into admitting the paternity of the child — to marry Jenufa and accept the child. In a pathetic, self-demeaning moment, she pleads with Steva on bended knee. But Steva is unyielding. He believes that money will buy his way out of his dilemma and offers financial support, but only on the condition that his fathering remains secret.
The Kostelnicka’s last appeal to Steva is heartrending: “Have pity on Jenufa! What has the poor creature done to you that you brought her to such dishonor!” But he wants nothing more of Jenufa; it was his half-brother Laca’s fault that her face was slashed. Her beauty gone, he no longer loves her. Steva is now engaged to Karolka, the mayor’s daughter. The Kostelnicka will appeal to Steva’s half brother, Laca, whom she believes harbors enormous guilt over the slashing incident, and who would do anything to win Jenufa for a wife.
But Laca is appalled at the thought of being saddled with his half-brother’s child. The Kostelnicka falsely claims that the child has died. “So, to the Lord our God I will send the baby! God will surely take him. The baby is too young to have sinned yet!” The Kostelnicka begins to envision the consequences of murdering the baby: her guilt will become a living nightmare; the villagers will taunt her; they will jeer at Jenufa; and they will point their fingers at both of them. There seems to be no path remaining for the Kostelnicka but to murder the child.
One of the production’s many highlights occurs in Act II, as Jenufa prays for mercy for her missing child, a Salve Regina:
Hail Mary, Holy Queen, Hail, Thou Mother of mercy, Hail, sweetest Holy Queen, Our hope in our sadness! Hail Mary! Hail to Thee! We cry on earth, poor, banished and suffering children; to Thee we send our sighs, cries and sorrows in a vale of tears.
Oh, Jesus Christ, turn Your most merciful eyes to us. Jesus Christ, blessed fruit of Thy womb, and after our ever-wandering exile, have mercy on us, O Thou dearest Virgin Mary!
Music, and dramatic moment combine to break into the hearts of the audience. Maestro Hrusa and the production’s Jenufa, Lise Davidson, seem to merge as they set the Aristotelian tragedy into its final denouement. Rarely has a modern audience felt as profoundly and immediately what Aristotle wrote centuries ago:
“Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complex, and of a certain magnitude, in embellished language…arousing pity and fear…its catharsis of such emotion.”
A sense of redemption through agape love weaves its way into the catharsis, the conclusion of Jenufa. Jenufa and Laca bond as each matures — both have overcome adversity, endured hardship, and risen toward a higher consciousness as they foreswore envy, jealousy, and selfishness. Both “sinned out of love!” Jenufa discovered the rightness of generosity and forgave the Kostelnicka for her horrendous crime; she also forgave Laca for the near fatal slashing of her cheek . Through God’s grace, the two transcend their earthly tribulations to discover a new sense of compassion and understanding of human misfortune.
Chicago didn’t take to Jenufa right away. The usually astute, but always sharply opinionated, Claudia Cassidy of the Tribune found the 1959 Chicago premiere of the work “something different in the world of opera”. Not even the singing of Gre Brouwenstijn (1915-1999) could help Ms. Cassidy from concluding that the opera “has eluded me on all fronts.”[ii]
Forty-one years later, the Lyric Opera tried again. This time they struck paydirt with Jenufa The headline of John von Rhein’s Tribune review, “A Tragic Triumph”, said it all. Patricia Racette (1965-)made her Chicago debut as Jenufa, along side the British diva Kathryn Harries (1951-2023) to create “an extraordinary and deeply moving achievement.”[iii] Racette “scored a notable house debut with a beautifully sung, touchingly acted Jenufa whose emotional odyssey from disillusioned village maiden to happily fulfilled young woman was drawn in subtle but telling strokes.”[iv]
Today the Lyric Opera has created an opera which is not simply a wonderful rendition of Jenifa, but also one of the most moving and wrenching stage performances you are ever to see. It exemplifies Shelly’s definition of art ‘s purpose – to reveal to the heart the knowledge of itself.
The success begins with the conductor, Jacob Hrusa. Having seen Simon Rattle’s 2022 Jenufa at the Berlin State Theater, one can easily realize the importance of Maestro Hrusa to the entire enterprise. The audience realized it as well, as each of his entrances to the pit was greeted by greater applause than the time before.
In the program book, dramaturg Roger Pines explains the reason for the vocal power coming from the stage: “ “Nina Stemme (Kostelnicka) and Lise Davidsen (Jenufa) arrive at the height of their powers.: And what powers!!! If you think all sopranos sound more or less alike, come and hear these two stars. If you think that great acting is incompatible with magnificent singing, Come and hear these stars. It is both a revelation and an education in what opera can be.
Chorus director Michael Black must be lauded for creating one of the finest vocal ensembles to sing some very tricky music. And Evamaria Weiser, the casting director, must be commended for finding such fine actor-singers as Pavel Chernoch (Laca) and Richard Trey Smagur (Steva).
Stage directors Claus Guth and Axel Weidauer kept the action alive and evocating. The two “improvements” they made to Janacek’s work – the meaningless entrance of a golden haired eight year old boy when Jenufa speaks of her six day old baby, and the appearance of a seven foot female rook who perched on Jenufa’s roof top, only to descend and pace aimlessly upstage for the remainder of the act. Rather than illuminating the action, these “imaginative” bits of stage business distracted and confused the course of the proceedings.
The stage settings of Michael Levine were simple and imaginative and evocative in black white and grey. James Farncombe’s lighting created strange yet appropriate moods for the music and the action. Gesine Volim’s costumes remained stark until they burst into bright vibrant colors for the wedding scene. Choreographer Teresa Rotemberg’s dance sequences provided early and appropriate moments of folk joy before the impending doom, and the would-be joyous wedding.
Those of us who attended Maestro Hrusa’s recent conducting of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a breathtaking rendition of Mahler’s 9th Symphony know what a remarkable conductor he is. Following that performance his name seemed to appear whenever a successor for Maestro Muti was discussed. Like Muti, Hrusa has extensive experience in opera; Muti credited his own operatic experience to the artistic growth of the Chicago Symphony.
If I were asked who should succeed Mr. Muti, I would not hesitate to say Jakub Hrusa.
[i] Michael Walsh, Who’s Afraid of Opera?: A Highly Opinionated, Informative, and Entertaining Guide to Appreciating Opera
[ii] Claudia Cassidy, “On the Aisle”, Chicago Tribune 1 November 1959, p, F9.
[iii] John van Rhein, “A Tragic Triumph:, Chicago Tribune November 20,2000, p. 1.
[iv] Van Rhein, ibid., p. D1
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