Janacek's Jenufa marks the beginning of his dramatic maturity though it is not his first opera. He completed it in March 1903 although he had worked on it for nearly a decade before. While the work was in preparation he had been struck by the visceral power of some other contemporary operas by such diverse composers as Mascagni and Tchaikovsky, but Jenufa is so original it sounds as though it sprang from nowhere. One thing it shares with some its contemporaries is its concern for unrelenting realism and harrowing events. Its characters, though fictional, are drawn from real life and the plot deals with the kind of issues its 'real life' characters might have had to face in the worst of conditions: infanticide, unrequited love, guilt and the suffocating oppression of a small community.
      David Alden sets the play in a modern Communist state, perhaps 1950s Eastern Germany. Like the Austro-Hungarian empire, in which the original was set, life was grim for all but the privileged few. War hovers over all life. The bleak and brutals sets of Charles Edwards and the grim lighting of Adam Silverman, and now Jon Clark, add to the sense of deprivation and claustrophobia. As such these underline and enhance the central themes of the opera, though it might argued that an out-of-wedlock pregnancy would have been less problematic in a modern dictatorship than in the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire. But popular rejection and the angry mob are well translated here, as is the fear of rejection by the community felt in the end by Kostelnicka. David Alden's transportation of the action to more modern times highlights the perennial elements of the opera superbly.
      Musically the performance was outstanding. Arguably the most striking musical achievement of the evening was the orchestra, and the way Eivind Gullberg Jensen moulded every phrase. I can hardly remember when I have heard the ENO orchestra sounding so good, both lush, incisive and sensitive to a multitude of nuances. The conductor is as important in Janacek's operas since one of his principal devices is to juxtapose strikingly contrasted styles to convey shifts of mood, action and thought. These were wonderfully managed under the ever alert Jensen, who proved himself a worthy member of the line of great Janacek conductors at ENO begun by Charles Mackerrras.
       The cast was equally superb, and it is hard to distinguish between their excellencies. Amanda Roocroft's Jenufa was a masterful portrayal of a young woman torn between her uncontrollable love for the wastrel Steva and Laca, whom her head should have chosen. The faithfulness of Laca was very touchingly portrayed at the end by Robert Brubaker as he saves Jenufa from the ignominy associated with her stepmother's infanticide.
More crucial than anything in opera is the right casting. It is particularly important to choose voices that can identify vocally as well as dramatically the characters being portrayed. This was especially successful in the choice of Michaela Martens and Amanda Roocroft. Roocroft has to move between obstinacye and vulnerability as suggest through sweetness her vulnerability driven by her uncontrolled lust for Steva. The much more severe and publicly respected Kostelnicka was magnificently portrayed by Michaela Martens, whose more commanding voice led both stature and severity to her opening scenes and a kind of broken dignity at the end when she confesses to the murder of Jenufa's baby. Kostelnicka, the stepmother, is as central to the opera as Jenufa. Her initial moral high-ground is undermined by her abduction and murder of Jenufa's child. It is unforgivable but understandable given the pressures of the society in which she and Jenufa live. When Steva leaves and there seems no prospect of Jenufa becoming an 'honest woman' Kostelnicka has to act. And she acts for what she thinks is in Jenufa's best interest, even though it may damn her immortal soul. God may found out, but there's a hope the villagers will not. Lies and nature should protect them. But they don't, and when the ice melts the baby's body is found. A lynch mob attacks the house in which she and Jenufa live. At first they think the culprit is Jenufa, but Kostelnicka's dignified confession saves the day. She will be found guilty by the villagers and by the heartbroken Jenufa and the courts will condemn her to death. Michaela Martens handled both physically and vocally the transformation from high-handed custodian of public morals lording it over her step-daughter to the bearer of unbearable guilt and public opprobrium at the end. She rose to every occasion and gave a wonderfully moving and varied performance. The opera is worth going to just for her, particularly as she uses the slightly hard-edge of her voice (observation, not criticism) to magnificent effect.
      Similar praise is due to the male roles, notably Tom Randle as the faithless Steva and Robert Brubaker as the faithful Laca. Each, like their female companions, brought all their vocal and dramatic powers to bear to give performances that were powerful and moving in every way.
      The quality of casting, costuming (as my guest said of Susan Gorton's Grandmother Burya “that's a fashion that will never catch on” - odd, as her frumpy 'sensible' shoes and pleated skirt were entirely recognizable as the uniform for women of a certain age and station in life) and vocal portrayal were as convincing as the longer leading roles.
      This may have been a revival from 2006, and as I did not see I cannot compare it. But I cannot imagine that it has lost anything in the revival and must be as good as when it was first seen.
Roderick Swanston