Jenůfa might be the most strangely uplifting story in the entire operatic repertory. Sure, the drama includes the murder of an innocent baby, a woman’s mutilation at the hands of her future husband, the brutal class politics of rural 19th-century life, and lots of people behaving badly. Still, Leoš Janáček’s masterpiece is a moving study of forgiveness and faith at heart and, after an onslaught of preceding violence, it concludes with a warped happy ending. Claus Guth’s powerful production – now making its US debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago after an initial staging at Covent Garden – captures the contradictions with perfect clarity.
Guth’s conception, staged here by Axel Weidauer, foregrounds the regimented, repressive world that facilitates the tragic actions that drive the plot. It also gives a distinct psychic weight to the choices made by the characters – all of whom, we come to genuinely believe, are good people driven to extremes. The gray, hulking walls of Michael Levine’s unit sets seem to close in on the village where Jenůfa lives under the watchful protection of her stepmother, Kostelnička, even as the bodies of supernumeraries ring the periphery, giving the perception of always being surveilled. Levine and Guth render the pair’s modest cottage as a chicken-wire cage in Act 2, the women existing on top of each other, allowing the fears and anxieties to boil over.
Some aspects come across as too self-consciously symbolic – having a background actor dressed as a huge crow perched atop the cage, foretelling doom, is overly stagey and distracting. But more often, Guth uses a spare directorial vision to get straight to the human core of the drama. Through deeply connected acting, we understand Jenůfa’s seemingly limitless capacity to absolve even the most unspeakable wrongs committed against her, and we shudder in recognition at the logic that drove Kostelnička to do the unthinkable. The performers, down to the smallest singing role, brim with inner life, creating an overarching sense of a community in which every person has a defined role.
Singing the title role for the first time in a fully staged production, Lise Davidsen defined a character arc with total specificity from the opera’s first moments to the wrenching conclusion. She came across more spirited and impetuous in the first act than many, which made the forcefulness of Laca’s attack all the more shocking. Her sincerity in the second and third acts was utterly convincing and moving. Her caring but stern final reproach of Kostelnička was delivered with a backbone of steel and a real moral clarity. Vocally, the dimensions of Janáček’s score suit Davidsen like a glove, especially the ethereally floated pianissimos of Jenůfa’s Act 2 prayer, which she dispatched with no diminution in audibility.
Nina Stemme, a celebrated Jenůfa herself in years past, matched Davidsen in dramatic intensity and vocal command as Kostelnička. Her bright, penetrating voice suited the stature of a character who views herself as one of God’s representatives on earth, yet she demonstrated in the opera’s quieter moments the genuine love that Kostelnička feels for the daughter she raised. Stemme’s characterization was not of a “small witch”, as Ṥteva describes her, but as a woman overly possessed by her ideas of position and practicality. In Stemme’s expert hands, Kostelnička’s psychology became frighteningly, uncomfortably recognizable.
As Laca, Pavel Černoch’s burnished, ringing tenor contrasted interestingly with the character’s somewhat pathetic countenance. Richard Trey Smagur made for a caddish, callow Ṥteva, and Marianne Cornetti was an imperious Grandmother Buryja, robed in Gesine Völlm’s jet-black costumes. Wonderful, distinctive singing came from several members of the Ryan Opera Center young artists’ program, including Kathryn Henry (Jano), Lindsey Reynolds (Barena) and Sophia Maekawa (Shepherdess). The refulgent bass-baritone Wayne Tigges was cast luxuriously in the small role of the Mayor.
Jakub Hrůṥa led a propulsive reading of the score that didn’t skirt on the overt lyricism of Janáček’s orchestral writing. There were bright details throughout, from the spicy, folk-infused percussion at the top of Act 1 to the heavenly harp that underscores Jenůfa and Laca’s ultimate profession of love. Concertmaster Robert Hanford brought an aching tension to his solo in Jenůfa’s second-act monologue. Music drives the drama in a Janáček opera, and in this extraordinary production, all elements are well served.
