Janáček Brno Festival presented a new staging of Janáček’s Jenůfa on Nov. 20 in a co-production with the Moravian Theatre Olomouc where it had its premiere on Nov. 15. Director Veronika Kos Loulová offers a radical take that includes spoken text as well as some surprising tinkering with the score. The result was both stimulating and provocative, raising the ire of audience members who vocalised their disapproval. Ultimately, Loulová and her all-woman team have created a Jenůfa for today that questions tropes around motherhood and familial relationships.
The creative team worked in conjunction with the organisation Úsměv mámy (A Mother’s Smile), a group for women struggling with doubts around motherhood, or are fighting postpartum depression. As dramaturg Marta Ljubková notes in the program, Janáček’s (and author of the original play, Gabriela Preissová’s) creation dealing with illegitimate children and their resultant social stigma provides “an opportunity to take a look at our lives today through the lens of ageless music.”
Scene from Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek
In Act 1, members of the chorus declaim quotations from historical reviews denouncing Preissová’s play, as well as phrases written by clients of A Mother’s Smile. In Act 2, after Jenůfa has given birth to her child, texts concerning aspects of motherhood (breast pumping, health issues, discomfort) that do not fit into neatly idealised notions were also projected into the hall.
The most radical intervention comes in Act 3 after Jenůfa astonishingly forgives her stepmother Kostelnička for murdering her child. Two DJ soundboards are brought onstage which are used by the Prague-based electronica girl band, viah. They sing lyrics like “I can’t believe I survived” to a heavy beat. The original score’s final duet between Jenůfa and Laca is excised.
At the post-performance panel discussion, which included all members of the creative team and two singers, director Loulová explained that after 1 ½ years of working on their concept, the team decided they simply didn’t want “that ending” for Jenůfa. After all, Laca is the suitor who in Act 1 slashes Jenůfa’s face with a knife in order to make her less attractive to his rival and half-brother, Števa.
Ultimately, Kostelnička brokers a deal for Laca to marry her stepdaughter despite her disfigurement and having given birth to Števa’s son. She then proceeds to drown the baby in order to ensure Jenůfa’s respectable future. The artistic team do not view this compromise as a satisfying fate, not only replacing it with the viah song, but going as far as having a young boy run onstage to greet his mother, implying a much less tragic ending.
Raman Hasymau (Števa) in Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek
Set and costume designer Irina Moscu situates the action somewhere in the later 20th century, or even, today. One has to question whether bearing an illegitimate child would have had the same societal implications in a contemporary context as they did at the time of the opera’s 1904 premiere. This resulted in an occasional disconnect between aspects of the text and the chosen setting. Ultimately though, this was a unified concept that inspired a deep commitment from all the performers.
In the title role, soprano Barbora Perná convincingly traced Jenůfa’s trajectory. In Act 1, she is a relatively carefree young woman willing to overlook her boyfriend Števa’s drunken binges and panty-collecting (a clever replacement for the “posies” he collects from his conquests in the original text). By Act 2 however, Perná is almost catatonic after giving birth. In Act 3 she channels the energy she receives from the women (chorus members and women associated with A Mother’s Smile) who offer her physical support as her dead baby is discovered. Vocally, she conquered most of the role’s demands, only betraying some strain in its more extreme, dramatic reaches.
Barbora Perná (Jenůfa) & Josef Moravec (Laca) in Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek
As often happens with Jenůfa, it is the Kostelnička who steals the show, and soprano Eliška Gattringerová certainly seized that opportunity here. She commanded her ample instrument to serve the text, offering a compelling but unexaggerated portrayal. Not the harridan of some interpretations, this Kostelnička joins in the couples slow dance as she enters. She confesses her own past amorous missteps thus clarifying why she is so intent on Jenůfa avoiding similar mistakes. She is more like a concerned older sister than a punishment-miting elder.
Tenor Josef Moravec sang strongly as Laca, though we didn’t get to hear him in the final duet, perhaps the role’s biggest vocal opportunity. As Števa Buryja, tenor Raman Hasymau was appropriately self-centred and revealed a keenly projected instrument. Also of note was mezzo-soprano Anna Moriová as Barena, whose dark, voluminous tone was well-suited to her Act 3 discovery of the dead baby.
Scene from Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek
Conductor Anna Novotná Pešková led the orchestra of the Moravian Theatre Olomouc with authority. Although its sound might not be the plushest, it effectively delivered all of the drama and tenderness in Janáček’s astonishing orchestration.
This presentation of Jenůfa was an all-encompassing theatrical experience. Pre-show, women dressed in period costume ranging from 19th century through 1980s slowly entered the auditorium and made their way onstage. They reappeared during viah’s performance. There was an informative pre-performance talk given by the dramaturg, simultaneously translated into English as was the post-show panel.
The show curtain was British artist Jamie McCartney’s most famous work, “The Great Wall of the Vulva,” showing forty real casts of this part of the female body. Audience members hurled invective mid-performance, and some felt compelled to boo at the end. No interpretation of any work of art is perfect, but this one made its points in a manner that was at once compelling and thought-provoking.
