Janacek: Jenufa -- Glyndebourne Reviews

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Good Points: Excellent casting.
Sensuous conducting, singing.
Effective staging.

General comments: Janacek: Jenufa -- Glyndebourne - Jan cek's most accessible opera is here given a highly effective staging by a first-rate cast and, despite his often overboard work, the director Nikolas Lehnhoff. Alexander stands out especially. Her voice smooth as silk, she understands the part with rare compassion. Her acting style, meanwhile, is refreshingly modern, modulated with both charm and restraint. In her hands, Jenufa's pathetic dilemma is a mix of winsome naivety and heartfelt tragedy. As Kostelnicka, Anja Silja's age and harsh voice seem utterly right. She may overact at times, but it seems almost appropriate to this role. Philip Langridge fills Laca with the right baffled despair while Mark Baker's teva produces the appropriate bluff callowness.

The work's primary attraction, however, is its stark modernity and remarkable human insight. No opera composer before or since Jan cek has come so close to genuine drama, and this is among his finest works. His libretto, finely honed to bring out everything the story offers in character and plot, races along with a speed that is never hectic but always compelling. The music here is also less uncompromising than in his other works, if every bit as unique and innovative. One recognizes arias, choruses, folk tunes, and dances. Yet these never bring the action to a halt, but drive it forward to its spine-tingling conclusion. Even the "happy" ending, which might seem maudlin in the hands of any other artist, produces just the right combination of heartbreak and eerie premonition.

Finally, the DVD itself is nicely mastered with fine image quality and effective (if sometimes too sparse) subtitling. Chapters are offered, though one must page through them one by one instead of by act. No supplementals, unfortunately, and this is a show about which much else could be said. But it IS an opera DVD, after all.