A fine performance of Jenufa
I got this blu-ray a few weeks ago from the UK, since I couldn't wait to watch it. Ever since I first saw it as a child, I love this opera, and while my favorite Janacek opera is typically the one I have seen most recently, Jenufa has always been special to me... This new recording from the Teatro Real Madrid is an excellent addition to the Janacek catalog. While the production isn't as intriguing as Robert Carsen's Katia Kabanova from the same theater, it more than gets the job done, and it gives three excellent singers a chance to shine: Amanda Roocroft as Jenufa, Deborah Polaski as Kostelnicka, and Miroslav Dvorsky as Laca. Of course, probably to no ones surprise, Polaski pretty much steals the show. She is not your usual burnt-out soprano using Kostelnicka to prolong a career that has seen better days. She is still at the top of her game, and her Kostelnicka is not a monster, but rather a complex woman who on the surface is stern and draconic, but also battered by life,...
Wonderful!!!
Jenufa is an important opera in respects other than its music and libretto. Janacek was almost 62 when it received its Prague premiere in 1916. It was one of five operas written before this great success happened -- the other four are considered part of his maturation and not performed. But it was this success that inspired him in what has been termed his Indian Summer to write four more operas, a symphonietta, a mass, and a couple of string quartets; and it is on these, as well as Jenufa that his reputation was built, although it took considerable time to reach full flower.
I thought that the Barcelona production with Nina Stemme was wonderful. I had some reservations about the mise en scène -- the focus on boulders of different sizes in the three acts ("A stone will crush me." "My sins weigh on me like a stone.") was carrying things a bit too far and to some extent was distracting. But the singing/acting was done very well indeed -- even, to my surprise, by...
Overall Best of the Three "Jenufa" DVDs
It's a thrill just to note that there are three DVDs of Leos Janacek's "Jenufa", and that all of them have merit. Dare I say that Janacek's "time has come" and that his operas now hold the stage alongside Verdi's and Wagner's both in Europe and America? Now there are excellent performances on DVD of:
Katya Kabanova: Janacek: Katia Kabanova
The Makropoulos Case: Janacek - The Makropulos Case / Davis, Silja, Begley, Glyndebourne Festival Opera [But I still hope for a better production of this.]
The Cunning Little Vixen: The Cunning Little Vixen - Janacek
Th House of the Dead: Leos Janacek: From the House of the Dead - Festival Aix-en-Provence 2007
Janacek owed a lot to...
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