The Invisible College Three Hungarians Jenufa Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District Ariadne auf Naxos The Marriage of Figaro Così fan tutte Don Carlo Falstaff's Fugue Die Fledermaus International Orchestra Institute Attergau The Mozarteum Orchestra

Jenufa - a masterpiece of a musical linguistic genius

This opera signified the breakthrough for Janácek as an opera composer

Dedicated to the late daughter

The rural idyll is deceptive. The mill-wheel turns and turns and turns ... These are the elements that make up an effective stage drama. Jenufa is the person who develops from an innocent young girl to become a clever and forgiving woman.
Karita Mattila will characterise this transformation in the title role; Hildegard Behrens sings the role of her foster-mother, Sir John Eliot Gardiner is to conduct the Czech Philharmonic. The opera will be directed by the film-maker Bob Swaim who has been equally successful with MGM in Hollywood as in France, his chosen country of residence and at the Berlin Film Festival. Swaim says he had been waiting 30 years for an offer to direct opera.
Constanze Holze traces the musical roots of the opera from peasant life in Moravia.

With Jenufa Janácek made his breakthrough as
an opera composer

It is undisputed that Leos Janácek made his breakthrough as an opera composer with his third opera Jenufa (Její pastorkyna - Her Foster-Daughter). Ever since its premiere in 1904 at the National Theatre in Brno this masterpiece has been one of the most frequently performed pieces by the composer.
Jenufa is an extremely interesting creation from a variety of viewpoints. Chances were rarely missed of pointing out feministic possibilities of interpretation, the realistically portrayed constrictive rural milieu and its social obligations, and social criticism and interpretations in the light of a resurgent national consciousness.
Janácek dedicated this "child of pain" to his daughter Olga who had died in 1903 - a fact that certainly had some influence on the expressivity and musical force of the opera.
Even bearing in mind that Janácek worked on the opera for over nine years, which can thus be regarded as especially intensive and detailed, this is not sufficient explanation. Furthermore it needed the success of 1916 in Prague in order to guarantee international recognition. Personal quarrels and disputes with the director of the theatre in Prague, Karel Kovarovic resulted in him preventing a performance in the Czech capital for over a decade.
Finally, with the help of the singer Marie Calma, a staging took place for which Janácek revised the original score and this led to the breakthrough.

Janácek transformed everyday conversations into music

Generally music historians and opera critics agree that Janácek's method of using motifs from language melody are clearly marked for the first time in Jenufa. There is evidence that the composer wrote down everyday conversations in brief musical sketches and yet he regarded these notes primarily as rough material. In a strange way Janácek succeeded in making his mother tongue immediately flow into the music. The choice of this method vouches for both originality and deep-rootedness
in tradition. The linguistic element lends Janácek's music clear contours which the composer used well, for instance, to imbue the discourse of his characters with strong vitality.

Speech melodies are the nude drawing of music

In conversation with Max Brod, who translated Jenufa into German, Janácek once said the following about his operatic theory: "... He did not want the composer to obtain bits of melody from truly observed language motifs. No, only the ability to define immediately an intonation that he had just perceived". Janácek demanded that the creative artist should carry out this exercise and analysis. 'Compositional theory', he said, 'will have to be enriched by a new chapter. In the way that nowadays counterpoint, harmony and form are practised and studied, the young opera composer has to a certain extent to learn how to draw from nature. Sketching real speech melodies is, as it were, nude drawing in music. Of course I would not dream of confusing a good nude drawer with a creative artist. Nude drawing is and remains pre-school, craft. But for me it is an essential craft and necessary pre-school.'

energetic stylistic intention and detail

This refutes the idea of all those who misinterpret Janácek's rootedness in the language idiom as folkloristic realism. In later works Janácek developed and perfected the use of language intonation. Jenufa is the first masterpiece of the musical linguistic genius of Leos Janácek, about whom Max Brod said, "As in Goethe, in Janácek's art energetic stylistic intention and detail instilled with life are equally balanced."

Looking for Janácek:
A Trip to the Czech Republic

Having fallen in love with Jenufa and Janácek's extraordinary music, I decided to approach the opera much in the same way as I prepare a film. So I decided to go looking for Janácek's world. I went to the Czech Republic accompanied by my production designer and dramaturge. We went to villages, we went into homes, we talked to people. It is important for me to understand something about Janácek's universe and the people who inhabit it. It's by understanding the essence of this world that we can transmit to the audience these "intangibles" which make up the soul of a work.

(Stage director Bob Swaim)

The stage design is by Ferdinand Wögerbauer. The premiere takes place on 23 July in the Felsenreitschule. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Czech Philharmonic, Karita Mattila sings Jenufa, Hildegard Behrens the Kostelnicka.

Leos Janácek - Jenufa

Sung in Czech with supertitles in German and English

Conductor ............ Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Stage director ............ Bob Swaim
Stage design ............ Ferdinand Wögerbauer
Costume design ............ Chloe Obolensky
Dramaturgy ............ Alain Patrick Olivier
Chorus master ............ Donald Palumbo

Old Buryja ............ June Card
Laca Klemen ............ Jerry Hadley
Steva Buryja ............ David Kuebler
The Kostelnicka ............ Hildegard Behrens
Jenufa ............ Karita Mattila
Karolka ............ Martina Jankovà
Jano ............ Gaële Le Roi

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Concert Association Vienna State Opera Chorus

Felsenreitschule

New production: 23 July 2001
26, 29 (at 5 p.m.) July,
1 and 4 August 2001
Performances begin at 7.30 p.m. unless otherwise stated.

Tickets are still available from the Ticket Office for the premiere on 23 July in the categories ATS 2,600 and 3,600, for the performances on 26 and 29 July and on 4 August also for ATS 4,200 and on 1 August in the categories ATS 3,600 and 4,200.