Jenufa

Synopsis

Set in Moravia in 1900. Jenufa, loved by Laca, has a son by Steva. Steva denies responsibility and is set to marry the mayor's daughter Karolka. Thinking that she would aid a marriage between Laca and Jenufa the sexton, Kostelnicka drowns the baby in the brook and tells Jenufa that it has died. Jenufa and Laca are about to be married as are Steva and Karolka. As the ceremony begins news comes that the body of a baby has been found under the ice. The Kostelnicka steps forward and confesses her guilt. Comforted by Jenufa's forgiveness, she is led away. Jenufa now turns to Laca and gives him his freedom; but he is faithful, and as the curtain falls they pledge their love.

Our Review:

18 March 2009

Alden himself is back to direct this first revival, before heading straight into rehearsals for his new ENO Peter Grimes (opens 9 May), and Amanda Roocroft reprises her award-winning performance in the title role. All the other principals and also the conductor are new to the production.

Robert Brubaker and Tom Randle are opposites as step-brothers Laca and Števa: the one diffident, scruffy and unstable; the other cocky, vain – preening himself in his leathers as he arrives on his motorbike, rather like Escamillo in Carmen – but ultimately vacuous.

Most impressively, making her European debut in the role of Kostelnička is Michaela Martens, who traces her black-garbed character’s deep-seated sense of decorum as it topples from fervour to extremism. As an upstanding pillar of her community – in Alden’s hands a modern-day central European community with Act I’s crumbling concrete factory a metaphor perhaps f...

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