by Antonio Pappano’s 23-year tenure as music director of the Royal Opera is a daunting feat that is hard to follow. Nevertheless, the support and enthusiasm with which the audience at Covent Garden greeted Pappano’s designated successor Jakub Hrůša for the first time, before he officially takes over as director in the autumn, was unmistakable. There was a sense that this was a great moment for modern Britain’s responsibility towards this art form, so often and so unfairly treated.
We shouldn’t be disappointed. It helped enormously that the Czech conductor was musically on home turf. Janáček’s poignantly contemporary Jenůfa, the composer’s 1904 story of violence, shame and forgiveness in the village, is in Hrůša’s DNA and he conducted it in Chicago a year ago. The Covent Garden Orchestra also recently played Jenůfa when Claus Guth’s production started in 2021. But with the art form itself at stake and the orchestra eager to prove its mettle to the new leader, Hrůša delivered a report of rare intensity and authority that is not to be missed.
Guth places Janáček’s drama in an alienated and expressionistic environment. In a manner recently taken up in Ted Huffman’s Royal Opera production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, he uses the full width and depth of the stage, here enclosed by louvered blinds and with a minimum of furniture or naturalism. The village mill is nowhere to be seen (although its rhythms permeate the score obsessively), while Jenůfa and her foster mother live in a cage on which a huge raven perches menacingly. It doesn’t always convince, but it reaches a truly liberating and convincing climax when Jenůfa and Laca finally slowly move forward and step out of the narrow confines of the production towards a new and perhaps happier life.
Vocally, the evening belongs primarily to the two central female figures. Corinne Winters is absolutely convincing as the vulnerable but indomitable Jenůfa. She handles the role with rare physical and musical credibility, and her compassionate intervention in the third act is extraordinarily moving. Karita Mattilas Kostelnička is even better than when she took on the role here three years ago. Her unerringly stern but frightening stage presence is now enhanced by a return to more body in her voice.
There are also strong performances from Jenůfa’s male admirers. Thomas Atkins gives the daring Števa a convincing mix of vocal bravura and stage seduction. Although Nicky Spence doesn’t feel completely comfortable in the first act, she illuminates Laca’s inner lyric dignity in detail in the third act. This is also a show with luxurious cameo appearances from veterans, including Jonathan Lemalu’s mayor and Marie McLaughlin’s wife, both a delight, but crowned by the 81-year-old Wagner mezzo-soprano Hanna Schwarz as the unforgettable grandmother Buryjovka.
• Until February 1st.
