The Story of Act I

Števa (Števa pronounced Shteva; Laca pronounced Latsa),* a gay lad of unstable character, who has been carrying on a love affair with Jenůfa, a member of his household, has been left a farm and an old but prosperous mill by his parents. Jenůfa is pregnant and fears that if Števa is drafted into the army he will be unable to marry her. Števa is much more interested in having a good time enjoying himself with the other lads and lasses of the village than settling down and looking after the mill, which is run efficiently enough by an experienced miller, assisted by Števa’s grandmother. In the household is Števa’s half-brother, Laca, a much more serious type: he is very deeply in love with Jenůfa.

When the curtain rises, we see the mill surrounded by a group of buildings. The background is a hillside with bushes and a number of fallen trees: there is also a creek near which Jenůfa stands looking pensively into the distance. The grandmother sits in the porch, peeling potatoes: Laca lounges on the trunk of one of the fallen trees, carving a stick with his knife.

Jenůfa is in great distress: she prays to the Virgin Mary to hear her prayer, for if her lover is recruited, he will be unable to marry her and the shame will kill her.

The grandmother peevishly asks Jenůfa if she expects all the work to be done by her: Jenůfa has surely done enough loafing around for one day: now that she is an old woman, her eyes are not as good as they were.

Laca takes her up on this: there are probably a good number of things, he says ironically, that the old lady’s eyes don’t see. Ever since they were children, she has always favoured and petted Števa and left him out in the cold. If she would only give him his share of the inheritance, he would clear out and make his future elsewhere: as it is, he is treated just like any other mill-hand. Laca has expressed himself with considerable heat and animosity, at which Jenůfa is moved to reprimand him: he should not speak so disrespectfully to grandmother, otherwise how does he expect her to love him.

"Quite right! Quite right!", the old woman nods approvingly.

But why does she want to make Jenůfa work today, asks Laca, when they all know how worried she is about Števa and the possibility of him being drafted into the army! Jenůfa fears these deadly prods of Laca, but tells the grandmother not to be angry with her for idling, she will make up for it later. She has just remembered that her pot of rosemary is beginning to fade and must go and water it: it would be very unlucky to let it wither.

There is an interruption as a shepherd-boy rushes in, excitedly holding a child’s copy-book in his hand: Jenůfa has been teaching him to read and he is most enthusiastic about his progress. Jenůfa promises also to teach the boy to write and to buy him a primer. (We recall a similar kindly relation between Petrovič and Aljeja in The House of the Dead.) The grandmother remarks proudly that Jenůfa should have been a teacher: she has a man’s head for such matters. Jenůfa sighs wistfully, "Dear Grandmother, I lost my head" (and by this she means also her heart) "a long time ago. "

The miller now enters briskly, his town suit covered with flour. When he sees Laca hacking with his knife viciously at the stick, he tells him it looks like a good job he is doing. If only the knife was sharper, Laca replies; he has been working away at it for two hours. The miller obligingly produces a small stone from his pocket and sharpens the knife.

While the miller is busy, Laca creeps up behind Jenůfa and with his stick pulls the scarf from her head. She does not even turn her head to look at him: he was always a mischief-maker! Jenůfa would not have objected, exclaims the jealous Laca, goaded by such indifference, if it had been Števa who had done this. Jenůfa tells him to mind his own business and enters the house.

The miller looks after her in admiration, remarking that she is the sort of girl that would turn any man’s head: she carries herself like a sack of poppy-seed! Laca replies, mockingly, that of course he is mad about her, so much so, in fact, that he has just put worms in the flower-pot with her rosemary, so that it may wither, just as he hopes her marriage with Števa will wither.

The miller begins to suspect that Laca is not so indifferent to Jenůfa as he tries to make out: he has noticed him blush when she appears. Laca tells him not to be such a fool. Anyway, it will all be over between Števa and Jenůfa once the latter is drafted into the army.

"Oh! But he hasn’t been drafted", exclaims the miller who has just heard the news from the postman.

At this grand news, Jenůfa jumps for joy and kisses the grandmother: Laca springs up resentfully ("How can they call this justice?"): the miller remarks that Števa has all the luck.

Jenůfa’s stepmother appears at this moment and is enthusiastically welcomed by her stepdaughter, who kisses her hand. The stepmother is the widow of the verger of the village church and consequently a very respected and revered person in the neighbourhood.

The recruits are heard singing and shouting off-stage and soon the stage is filled with them, the workers from the mill, and the villagers, who have come to greet them. Jenůfa runs to welcome Števa who, like most of the recruits, is drunk.

Jenůfa gently reproves him, while Števa, who can hardly stand, stammers: "Me! Me! You say that I am drunk! Don’t you know who I am? Stefan Burya-that I own a mill and a farm and the girls are always running after me? See! I got these flowers from one of them! "Turning irritably to the group of street musicians who have followed the soldiers, he grandly throws them a handful of coins commanding them to play Jenůfa’s favourite song: "It’s a long, long way to Nove Zamky" ("Far and Wide"). This is a tremendously spirited quasi-folk-song rendered with great gusto by the soldiers and townsfolk, who, after each verse, execute a wild dance. Števa puts his arm around Jenůfa and tries to dance the difficult steps of the fiery Odzemek dance. (The theme of this piece appeared in an early piano piece "Ej Danaj" and in a later choral work, Zelené sem sela, which also used the song and dance theme of "It’s a long, long way to Nove Zamky.")

The wild and rough dancing and singing has got out of hand; at least that is the opinion of the stern Kostelnička (as Jenůfa’s stepmother is called), for the stepmother now appears, and with a single commanding gesture silences the musicians and the crowd.

If this is how Jenůfa and Števa intend going through life, she will never give her consent to their marriage. Števa must stay sober for at least a year before she will even consider allowing him to marry her stepdaughter. Kostelnička is, of course, unaware of the fact that Jenůfa is expecting a child by Števa and all unwittingly has thus sealed her own doom.

Laca alone is pleased with her decision: all the others deplore her unwonted sternness, and the crowd gradually disperses. The grandmother advises Števa, her favourite, to take a nap and tells him he should not be so easily led astray by his friends.

The recruits repeat her words mockingly as they depart. The sympathetic grandmother puts her arm round Jenůfa, telling her not to cry: "Kazdy parek si musi svoje trapeni prestat", which may be looked upon as a Czech equivalent of "The course of true love never did run smooth". The words and tune are taken up by the miller, by Laca, by Jenůfa and the farm-hands in a noble and moving ensemble.

Eventually they depart, leaving Jenůfa alone with Števa. In a low voice, Jenůfa tells him they must get married at once: her stepmother will be angry enough when she finds out the truth, but God has helped them so far, for Števa has not been drafted into the army.

Števa replies belligerently that her stepmother is always abusing him-that is all the thanks he gets for loving her daughter, "and believe me, there are plenty of other girls chasing after me".

Jenůfa reminds him, with some irritation, that he has obligations towards her, for if he were to desert her now, she would kill herself. Števa tells her not to worry; she is the most beautiful of all the girls he knows and he would stick to her if only because of her apple-blossom cheeks. At this point, the benevolent grandmother enters and tells Števa that the darling boy has had enough worries for one day and must go and sleep them off. Jenůfa returns to the basket and continues to peel potatoes.

The entire scene has been watched by the jealous Laca, who now approaches Jenůfa, throwing away the stick but holding the knife in his hand. "What a coward is this Števa of yours" he says derisively. "As soon as Kostelnička speaks to him, he cowers away like a whipped dog! "Laca is trembling feverishly and picks up the flowers Števa has thrown away.

Jenůfa takes them from him, saying that she can even take pride in flowers her lover has been given from another girl. Laca is beside himself with jealousy.

Her lover doesn’t seem interested in anything but her rosy cheeks, he says, looking at his knife and muttering to himself: this knife would make them rosier still. He tries to embrace her, she spurns him and in the struggle he slashes her face with his knife.

A girl looking for work has been a witness to the struggle and attack. She screams and the miller and grandmother rush in as Jenůfa runs into the house in a panic.

Laca is covered with remorse: "What have I done? What have I done, Jenůfa darling? I have loved you ever since we were children." As he turns away utterly crestfallen, the miller shouts after him that he did it deliberately.

The Music of Act I

The very first sound in Jenůfa is the dry, crackling, cricket-like timbre of a xylophone repeating a low G flat note above a pizzicato falling octave in the bass:

No 196

somehow, the resulting effect is sinister, even threatening, and when the violins bring in their infinitely poignant melody with its persistently agitated two-note counterpoint, the mood is set for a drama which already hints at unusual emotional depths and personal tragedy.

No 197

The harmonic basis of the opening paragraph is the first inversion of the chord of A flat minor said to be Janáček’s favourite key: like the Spaniard, Albeniz, Janáček does, indeed, seem to revel in key signatures bristling with flats, although in this case he is content to write the major key signature of four flats and add the accidentals as required.

As will be seen from No. 197, the last note of the pathetic violin theme is E double flat and the little sigh on the flutes which follow, also emphasizes this still darker tone: on the third repetition of the whole phrase the flute motif is dwelt on for three further bars crescendo, followed by an ascending scale passage which surges up to a fortissimo climax on a high C flat, the note at the beginning of the introduction (now written as B natural-an enharmonic modulation). In point of fact bars 22-23 are the opening bars 1-2 in reverse: the high measured xylophone tremolo has now become a low fortissimo roll on the timpani, the leaping pizzicato octave in the bass a measured quaver tremolo in the treble.

No. 197, with its attendant syncopated figure now following the melodic outline of A, is then twice forcefully declaimed by brass and wind in a chromatic sequence of first inversion diminished chords with the end sighing three-note motif on violins but now without the previous interpolation of the pulsating two bars of xylophone and bass.

We again hear B of No. 197, but now in a vastly contrasted presentation: pianissimo instead of fortissimo, with the principal theme on a solo violin, where the underlying harmony is a chord of the diminished seventh erected above D natural. The three-note sigh (figure B of No. 197) is brought into prominence with a sforzando on its first note, which, paralleling the opening paragraph, is repeated for two extra bars, followed by the ascending scale passage which is now heard diminuendo e ritenuto.

The curtain rises, and our eyes are immediately arrested by the sight of the beautiful but despairing Jenůfa anxiously awaiting the return of her lover. A of No. 197 quietly dominates the three interlocked four-bar phrases which we hear from the rising of the curtain till the opening notes of Jenůfa’s soliloquy. The key centre has slipped down a semitone from A flat to G (a characteristic example of Janáček’s flexible shifting tonality): apart from the perfect cadence necessary to define the new key, the whole passage is based on the tonic chord of G major beginning and ending- in the indecisive second inversion of the chord: although the mood is relatively calm after the agitation of the opening paragraphs, the presence of this arpeggio figure (No. 198 (A)) with its tied end-note betrays unrest and uncertainty.

no 198

Janáček’s pupil, Vilém Petrželka, tells of an enthralling lesson he had in the year 1907, when Janáček was lecturing to his students on the difference between the formal overtures of classical opera, and the short, pregnant introductions to many modern operas. Janáček cited the introduction to his own opera Jenůfa as an example of the latter and proceeded to analyse it. "We listened with bated breath", writes Petrželka, "not only to his words but also to his music, and each one of us felt the tremendous originality of this music, music such as we had never heard before. Janáček, the professor of composition, seemed almost to disappear, giving way to Janáček, a great composer creating something strikingly original in music. He concluded by saying, ‘Jenůfa braces herself and sets out to meet life. You are all of you young and, therefore, I impress upon you "Let truth be your guide, not only in life but also in art"!"’

"Evening approaches and Števa hasn’t returned ", Jenůfa sings with rising agitation. A motif of guilt appears in the oboe

No. 199

Her brief solo ends with this heart-rending phrase

No. 200

Already one notes a tendency by Janáček to repeat words and phrases of his libretto: "O Virgin Mary, I long so deeply that you will answer my silent prayer. If they have drafted my lover and our marriage is stopped, the shame of it would kill me, the shame of it would kill me. " Laca’s jealous outburst against the grandmother’s unfair discrimination between Števa and himself is a vigorous triple time allegro movement (arietta) in G sharp minor, with some angry syncopations and pugnacious phrases like:

No. 201

but with a quieter, self-pitying mood at [8]. The little episode about the pot of rosemary begins with this dual theme

No. 202

with variations of the rhythmical unit (A) and the flowing figure (B), when the shepherd-boy bursts in with enthusiastic thanks to Jenůfa for teaching him to read. There is a sad little interlude at [20] when Jenůfa confesses that "she lost her head-a long time ago ".

At the entrance of the miller, the orchestra plays a hearty, blustering phrase

No. 203

which holds sway throughout the entire scene until [30]. The repeated notes of the icicle-toned xylophone are heard solo as the miller sharpens Laca’s knife, an association between knife and xylophone which culminates at [83] when Laca wounds Jenůfa with his knife.

The music becomes more sustained (p. 27) when the miller confides to Laca the effect Jenůfa’s eyes have on him. Laca’s mocking reply is introduced by a strident octave passage in the orchestra (p. 28). A variation of No. 202 (C) flows easily, as the jealous Laca tells of his mean little trick with the pot of rosemary, doubling in speed as he confesses he hopes her marriage with Števa will similarly wither.

After the miller has broken the news that Števa has not been recruited, there is a short excitable four-part vocal ensemble.

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