The Gran Teatre del
Liceu is a good, solid opera house,
and this series by TDK, filmed in conjunction
with the house is generally reliable.
Jenůfa,
Janàček’s first real operatic
success, is popular for many good reasons.
With this particular cast list, this
should have been an interesting production,
and indeed, it really isn’t bad. But
it didn’t inspire. Ultimately, what
makes a performance work depends not
on superficial measures but on how it
reflects what’s in the music. There’s
no easy way to assess the merits or
demerits without some understanding
of the opera works as drama and music.
In this case, I was
wondering how an opera which features
sex, violence and child murder could
be as uninvolving as this production
was. It’s not Janàček’s
fault, for his music is so inherently
vivid. On subsequent hearings, listening
specifically to the orchestral playing
rather than to the singing, I was surprised
at how smooth it sounded, as all the
jerky edges of Janàček’s
style had been polished. It’s pleasant
enough, but in the process, the rawness
that’s at the heart of the music is
neutralised. It smoothed over important
detail, like the famous "icicle"
notes subverting the images of summer
heat, and detail "speaks"in
this core. The plot pits social pretension
against against wild emotion, and Janàček’s
music takes the side of passion. So
the playing would be more idiomatic
if it wasn’t so soothing.
The staging, too, took
the side of repression, again soothing
and siding with convention, whatever
the real meaning in the
opera and its music. It was, literally,
bland and monotone. Jenůfa appears
in maternity clothes which gives the
game away from the start. Kostelnička
isn’t supposed to know she’s pregnant:
the whole plot pivots on this basic
misunderstanding. Indeed, misunderstandings
are crucial to many turns in the plot,
highlighted by touches in the music,
but this straightforward approach to
the opera smoothes them over. The one
big hint about emotional undercurrents
is the presence on stage of a huge rock,
bursting up from the stage. In Act Two,
it’s fully revealed because we know
what the results are. In Act Three,
it’s reduced to small pieces of rock
which the townsfolk pick up in order
to stone "the murderer", while
they still think it’s someone vulnerable
like Jenůfa.
In a more incisive production the image
might work but in one here it jarred
with the overall blandness and lack
of emotional engagement.
Technically, the singing
was good enough, but without decisive
conviction about what the opera means,
it’s hard to create character. Stemme
can act better than she does here: the
role’s dramatic range didn’t fully register,
and she wasn’t helped by costume or
makeup. She’s supposed to look like
a maiden in full bloom, like the flowers
that keep popping up in the libretto.
On the other hand, Marton’s Kostelnička
was costumed to look most horribly brutal.
Of course, as the verger’s widow she’s
supposed to be a bastion of propriety
and has to keep up appearances. But
the music and plot make clear that what
really motivates her is her overwhelming
love for Jenůfa.
It’s that intense love that makes her
send Steva away 'til
he’s reformed, that makes her bring
him back even if she hates him, and
ultimately, to kill the baby so Jenůfa
might have a chance to find happiness
with Laca. Marton’s voice may be rough
at the upper range now, but it
was a welcome antidote to the one dimensional
portrayal of her role. In a sanitised
production like this, it was a welcome
glimpse of humanity for a character
reduced to caricature. More worrying,
though, was the portrayal of the old
grandmother, Stalenka, as a blind woman
wandering around stage with a stick
asking for help. In the libretto, Laca
calls her blind because she doesn’t
see how she’s spoiled Steva and what
he’s up to. That kind of blindness is
in her character not her eyes. Far from
relating to others, she’s fixated only
on Steva. Lindskog doesn’t have much
with which to develop Steva as a personality,
but the role of Laca is pregnant with
possibilities, to use an unfortunate
turn of phrase. First he’s lustful,
then resentful, then violent, then revealed
as a noble soul. Silvastri has the ability
to extend the role well beyond what
it was here. The only performer to get
a chance to act and sing with real personality
was Boesiger’s Karolka, almost stealing
the show in a minor role, simply because
she was able to show a liveliness lacking
in the other characterisations.
Nonetheless, this certainly
isn’t a bad production and its very
safeness and lack of challenge could
make it popular with audiences who aren’t
too familiar with it or the composer’
idiom. In some ways it’s as close as
Janàček gets to mainstream,
and this production so neutral that
it might as well have been in another
language, in both senses of the word.
But any performance adds to the process
of learning. So I’m glad I listened
to this even if it’s not quite as distinguished
as it might have been. In its own way,
it’s a case study that tells us something
about how scores are brought into performance,
and how music gets turned into drama.
Anne Ozorio
Orquestra Sinfònica/Peter Schneider
TDK
DVWW-OPJENU [127:00]
