Scene 3 is
really a short introduction to Scene 4: the
repetition of words in the solo of Jenůfa
heightens the deep emotional contents of her
song: her anxiety motif is present in the
accompaniment.
Scene 4 opens
with the riotous singing and dancing of the
recruits, to the accompaniment of a whirling
figure and an energetic pattern punched by
the orchestra. The recruits approach, singing
this tune:
No 204
augmented
with joyous octave leaps on "Ej juchej!"
("Ah! Whoopee!") . The worrying little
figure previously noted as a counterpoint
at p. 7, bar 15 (No. 199) [30] now appears
in a placid vocal form after Jenůfa’s first
wild ecstatic greeting to her lover:
No. 205
That Števa
is violent when drunk is suggested by the
sforzando syncopations at [36] and his belligerent
drunken shouts. The theme of the energetic
chorus-dance led by Števa singing at the top
of his voice is
No 206
In the worst
of taste he boasts (unaccompanied) about flowers
given him by some other girl. The sixteen-bar
alternate sections for dancing are based on
the same theme (206) with forceful poundings
on the second beat of every second bar. There
are three verses to the furiant and three
dance interludes.
The even wilder
Odzemek dance which follows is a more or less
one-bar variation of (A of 206), interrupted
by a heavy chromatic phrase as Kostelnička
emerges from the crowd and puts an emphatic
stop to the merriment. Her stern rebuke to
Jenůfa and Števa is set to suitably solemn
music and is followed by a 6/8 piu mosso,
as the recruits whisper among themselves that
she is certainly a forbidding woman. When
Kostelnička lays a curse on her stepdaughter
if she would dare to disobey her, heavy brass
plays two sharp threatening chords.
Laca, on the
other hand, is so relieved at this unexpected
turn of events and so grateful to Kostelnička
for banning the marriage that he grows almost
lyrical in returning the shawl which has dropped
from her shoulders and in gratitude offers
to kiss her hand.
The scene
has grown unduly tense; it is a relief when
the grandmother and townsfolk turn on the
musicians and in a presto, scold and dismiss
them, to this biting little rhythmic figure
No. 207
The beautiful,
expressive andante ensemble number which follows
("Every young couple have their hardships"),
No. 208
which sums
up the emotional situation at this stage of
the opera, was added by Janáček, and belongs
to the ensemble conventions of classical operas
by Gluck, Mozart, Verdi and middle-period
Wagner on one hand, and Smetana and Dvořák
on the Czech national plane on the other hand,
but has no further place in the realistic
music dramas of Janáček’s later operatic periods.
In his own
words:
It is
almost a proverb to say that "every
couple must endure its sorrow ".
So in my opera once the grandmother has
brought this out, everyone has a valid
reason for agreeing with her: Laca on
account of his own sorrows, Jenůfa with
her own pressing trouble, and indeed every
young man and woman must subscribe to
so universal a philosophy. I felt too
that I must dwell on the passage in order
to give the eight-part music time to broaden
out in a natural way and resolve again
into the faintest pianissimo, just as
thought fades into oblivion.
As the company
disperses, leaving only the lovers on the
stage, the sinister, repeated notes on the
xylophone (knife -or Fate-motif) are heard
again. To eloquent and touchingly pleading
music
No. 209
Jenůfa tries
to bring her lover to realize the extent of
his responsibilities. He brushes aside, as
irrelevancies, such weakly, womanly fears
with some irritation,
No. 210
and in an
ensuing Presto Jenůfa borders on hysteria
at the thought of Števa refusing to marry
her. His praises of her beauty are lyrical
and operatically effective for a "heroic
"tenor, but nevertheless, have an undercurrent
of shallowness about them: one senses his
love for Jenůfa is only skin-deep.
Again the
icicle tone of the xylophone appears as the
jealous Laca taunts Jenůfa with the cowardice
of her lover, in a vigorous quasi-mazurka
section which accelerates to a climax.
Jenůfa replies
that she takes pride even in a flower given
her lover by another girl: it is this remark
which goads Laca to a point of madness and
with sinister repeated xylophone notes resounding,
he slashes at her face. A tremendous flood
of tone is released in the orchestra (with
a sextuplet figure running riotously up and
down) as the repentant Laca passionately begs
Jenůfa for forgiveness.
The unexpected
witness to the assault excitedly tells what
she has seen to the miller and the grandmother,
as their voices are added to the ensemble.
The Story
of Act II
Several months
have elapsed since the first act. Jenůfa has
confessed her "sin" to her stepmother,
who has loyally hidden her in her house until
the birth of the child, while giving it out
publicly that her stepdaughter has found domestic
employment in Vienna.
The scene
is a room in the stepmother’s house. As she
is a high spiritual authority in the village,
the room, naturally enough, has on the walls
many pictures of saints, and other holy pictures.
Jenůfa sits
dejectedly on a chair by the table sewing,
her head bent over her work: she has an ugly
scar on her cheek. Her stepmother enters from
an adjoining room and gently admonishes her
for sitting in an over-heated room. Why does
she continually have to behave like a lost
soul? Jenůfa replies that she is utterly miserable,
and Kostelnička agrees that she too cannot
find any peace. At least the boy’s father
might have shown some interest in his newly-born
son.
Jenůfa thinks
she hears little Števa stirring in his sleep
and runs to the door and listens: but no,
the child is sleeping soundly. "He is lovely
and quiet", she says proudly, "he has
not cried since he was born."
Kostelnička,
however, finds his "whimpering" gets
on her nerves! When Jenůfa complains of feeling
weak, Kostelnička makes her drink a sleeping
potion and insists that she should retire
to her room and rest for a while.
This is part
of her plan, for she has arranged for Števa,
the father of the child, to call at her house.
The proud Kostelnička is prepared to humble
herself before him and beg him to marry Jenůfa:
she hates the braggart and loose-living Števa
and equally hates his pale-faced and unwanted
child, but can think of no other way of securing
the happiness of her stepdaughter, whom she
loves devotedly, other than arranging for
the parents to marry.
There is a
timid knock at the door. She hastily turns
the lock on Jenůfa’s door and admits Števa,
who is in low spirits. He got her message,
he says glumly, what does she want from him?
Has something happened to Jenůfa? The stepmother
reproaches him @or not having come before
this: Jenůfa is well again and so is the child.
"So the
child is born!" says Števa, surprised,
but without much enthusiasm. He admits candidly
that he is afraid of Kostelnička, who, he
fears, wishes to run his life for him, and
now that Jenůfa’s beauty has been spoiled,
he no longer cares for her. He will provide
for them both, of course, but on condition
that no one knows he is the father of the
child.
Kostelnička
tries to force him to face up to his responsibilities:
by everything sacred, both Jenůfa and his
son belong to him. But this reasoning has
no effect on the shallow and spoiled Števa,
who considers his affair with Jenůfa as finished
and done with. In recent years, he says, Jenůfa
has been getting far too much like her stepmother
-like some ugly old witch-for his liking;
and besides, he is now engaged to Karolka,
the Mayor’s daughter.
At this moment,
Jenůfa cries out in her sleep and as Kostelnička
rushes in to attend to her, Števa takes the
opportunity of slipping hurriedly away: seeing
this, the stepmother reflects bitterly on
the wretched Števa, who did not even bother
to glance at his son, this child who is proving
such an embarrassment to them all. "I
would like to take the little brat and throw
it at his feet and tell him: ‘Here, take it!
There is your guilt!"’
The door opens
and Laca enters. He has called several times
to see Kostelnička, hoping for pardon for
the jealous wounding of her stepdaughter.
He has seen Števa leaving and wonders if,
by any chance, Jenůfa is back. Kostelnička
breaks down and tells him the whole truth:
Jenůfa has never been to Vienna, but has been
hidden in this house for many months and recently
gave birth to Števa’s child: Števa has deserted
her and has announced his engagement to Karolka,
the Mayor’s daughter.
Laca is stunned
at this news. He is still as much in love
with Jenůfa as ever, and wants above all to
marry her, but recoils at the first thought
of becoming a "father" to Števa’s
child. It is Kostelnička’s tragedy that she
misunderstands this remark of his. Believing
that he refuses to marry Jenůfa on account
of the little Števa, and feeling herself cornered
with only one possible way out, she tells
him that he need not worry on this account
for the child died a few days after it was
born. Laca brightens up at once and now forced
to take some positive action, Kostelnička
sends him away on the first errand she can
think of-to find out when Števa’s marriage
to the Mayor’s daughter will take place.
Left alone,
Kostelnička now sees clearly that the unwanted
child is the stumbling-block to Jenůfa’s ultimate
happiness. The child was born in sin, "just
like his father’s black soul". If he were
to die, all innocent, without knowing sin,
he would go straight to Heaven. Stealthily
she enters
Jenůfa’s room
returning with the child wrapped in her shawl
and runs out of the house, locking the door
behind her.
A few moments
later, Jenůfa enters, dazed from a drugladen
sleep. She looks slowly around, rubs her forehead,
frightened. Being kept a prisoner behind blinds
for so long and constantly nagged by her stepmother
has had its effect on her. She is heartbroken
that Števa has not once come to enquire after
her, and she looks round for her only consolation,
her little boy. She runs backwards and forwards
in the room in great agitation, searching
for the child.
Suddenly she
thinks of a simple solution: her stepmother
has taken the baby to show to its father,
and kneeling by the picture of the Madonna,
prays fervently to the Virgin Mary: "We
greet thee, O Heaven’s Queen, Merciful Mother,
thou sweetness of life, our only hope",
and ends with an impassioned request that
the Virgin Mary should watch over her little
Števa and not abandon him.
There is a
knock on the window. Jenůfa jumps to her feet,
opens the window, then, seeing it is her stepmother,
hastily opens the door. Is little Števa with
her? Did she leave him with his father at
the mill? Perhaps he will bring back the baby
himself, now that he has seen what a lovely
child he has.
Kostelnička
is trembling and breathing heavily. Little
does Jenůfa know the truth, she sighs in gasps.
She has been in a high fever for some days,
during which time the child has died. Jenůfa
cries out in agony, falls on her knees, buries
her head and sobs into her stepmother’s lap.
Kostelnička
tells her it is all for the best. She is free
again, that is the main thing. When Jenůfa
recovers sufficiently to ask whether Števa
knows about this, Kostelnička tells her to
put him right out of her mind. He came and
would not so much as look at the child: he
no longer loves Jenůfa and, moreover, is now
engaged to Karolka, the Mayor’s daughter.
Let Jenůfa instead turn to Laca who, unlike
his spoiled and petted halfbrother, has always
loved her and who, moreover, knows everything
that has happened and is still anxious to
marry her.
Laca himself
enters at this moment and approaches Jenůfa
confidently with outstretched hands. She thanks
him for his generous attention to her when
she was in hiding, and often overheard him
talking kindly of her to her stepmother. Laca
replies that life must go on: she will get
over the loss of her child and he ventures
softly and sadly to ask if there is any hope
that she might change her mind and marry him.
Kostelnička
urgently assures Laca that assuredly she will
marry him: she has already recovered from
her loss and there is no reason why she should
not be happy again. Jenůfa is apologetic about
her stepmother’s over-eagerness: Kostelnička
is behaving childishly! "Think it over
carefully, Laca", she says calmly; "I
have neither money nor honour, and of love,
that pure love you would expect from your
bride, I am bereft." If he wants her,
she continues softly, he must take her as
he finds her. This is more than sufficient
for the patient and true-hearted Laca, who
embraces her and kisses her tenderly on her
wounded cheek. "More than anything in
the world I want you, Jenůfa-only be mine!"
"Then we shall bear together all things
that come to us, be they good or bad",
Jenůfa replies.
Kostelnička
gives them her blessing, but cannot forbear
from cursing the man who has caused her stepdaughter
so much suffering, and the woman who has taken
her rightful place. A sudden gust of wind
blows the window open, and Kostelnička panics:
"What is that cry out there? It is as
if Death were creeping in! "The act concludes
on this disturbing note.
The Music
of Act II
Restless,
swaying, fretful music, above a continual
pulsating measured tremolo punctuated by some
alarming sforzando, opens the second act:
until this loud rebellious theme suddenly
appears
No. 211
representing
Kostelnička’s bitter resentment at the unlucky
fate which has brought her and her beloved
stepdaughter into this wretched condition.
Jenůfa, on
the other hand, is exultant in the pure joy
of young motherhood, expressed in a tender
episode with this sweetly expressive, innocently
beautiful theme (almost Smetana-like in its
diatonic simplicity; the melody phrases always
close restfully on the tonic) on viola and
clarinet
No. 212
below ethereal
chordal tremolos on violins.
Her child
is so lovely, so quiet, so beautiful: he is
the fulfilment of her life.
One gets a
pretty good idea of what Jenůfa has had to
suffer in the past months during her confinement
from Kostelnička’s irritable outburst about
the baby’s whimpering [1 I] and yet against
this, there is her overwhelming pride and
devotion to her stepdaughter.
No. 213
It is this
blind devotion and false family pride which
is Kostelnička’s undoing and while she offers
Jenůfa a comforting drink, which we know to
be a sleeping draught, the music becomes warm
and expressive of her deep devotion and love
for her stepdaughter.
But after
she has closed the door behind Jenůfa, the
music immediately becomes agitated as she
rants vehemently against the false Števa and
this pale-faced unwanted child of his. There
are some interesting figurations, rhythms
and orchestration (particularly at the end
of the scene when the music hugs itself, as
it were, into a mighty rage), but because
of the diatonic rationalism of voice line
and harmonies and because of the clarity and
stability of the rhythms which, in middle
period Janáček, show little of the later tendency
to behave like Aaron’s rod and turn themselves
into a variety of different objects, the music
makes a direct and immediate contact with
operatic audiences all the world over.
In the stormy
scene between the callous Števa and Kostelnička,
when passions and tempers are at high pitch,
this little figure
No. 214
is prominent
amidst surging melodic figures and conflicting
rhythms.
The twining
guilt motif reappears at [27]. Kostelnička
first makes an impassioned plea for Števa
to marry Jenůfa in an equally eloquent and
passionate aria: the music breaks off and
becomes quiet and tender when she sees that
Števa is affected by her words and is crying:
"Come! Take your son in your arms! Take
Jenůfa in your arms too and comfort them both."
But Števa’s tears are tears of self-pity.
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