Jenůfa

A brief introduction:

In a village where judging eyes lurk behind every curtain, Jenůfa hides a terrible secret. Unmarried and pregnant by a man who does not love her, her guilt grows more visible every day. Determined to protect the family honour, her stepmother takes matters into her own hands. But when spring comes and the snow melts, secrets are brought into the light, and her horrifying solution is at last revealed.

Jenůfa (1904) is Janáček’s first mature opera: a musical and dramatic arrival. A taut thread from start to finish, it takes a shocking theatrical melodrama and transforms it into something subtler: an examination of human nature in all its flawed complexity, a drama of wicked actions and good intentions, of love, jealousy, faith, forgiveness and community, with two very different women at its centre.

All of Janáček’s mature hallmarks are here, from vocal lines that mirror the rhythms and inflections of speech – sung drama at its purest and most concise – to folk-inspired melodies, and orchestral writing that drives the action, rich in colouristic touches. This is the Czech tradition of Dvořák and Smetana arriving into the 20th century: lean, fresh and fiercely lyrical.

Why not to miss it:

Glyndebourne’s remarkable history with Janáček stretches back to the 1980s and Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s era-defining sequence of stagings. Now a new generation of directors are reimagining the composer’s works. Following Damiano Michieletto’s poetic Káťa Kabanová, South-African director Yaël Farber makes her Festival and UK-opera debut with this new production of Jenůfa. 

Well known for her award-winning theatre in the West End, at the RSC and National Theatre, Farber’s stagings have an elemental ferocity and rawness to them. Her Jenůfa promises to confront the darkness at the heart of this morally complex story and draw out the human threads that run so densely tangled through it.

A great moment to look out for:

Jenůfa wakes from sleep and finds her baby gone. Her every emotional flicker and response is lovingly charted in Act II’s extraordinary scena ‘Mámičko, mám těžkou hlavu’, her innocence and optimism in stark contrast to Kostelnička’s earlier scheming. A huge, ominous crash of brass sounds, out of which a solo violin emerges like a bird from an explosion: Jenůfa is now in the eye of the storm, trying to fly freely, but now forever anchored in tragedy by Kostelnička’s actions. Themes return from earlier scenes, retracing everything that has led us to this point, but Jenůfa – half-asleep, half-mad – finds lyrical space with help from the solo violin. Her outpourings take focus in a Salve Regina to the Virgin for all children ‘Zdrávas královno’ – a radiant moment of musical stability and beauty supported by solo oboe. But calm is banished by Kostelnička’s return, and the aria reaches a frightening climax as she knocks on the window.

Cast and creative team:

Yaël Farber makes her Glyndebourne debut with this new staging of Jenůfa. Chilean soprano Yaritza Véliz – praised by The Times for her ‘megawatt’ performance as Mimì in 2022’s La Boheme – makes her role debut as Jenůfa, with American tenor Jamez McCorkle and Ukrainian tenor Oleksiy Palchykov as rival lovers Laca and Števa. Celebrated German-Italian soprano Anja Kampe, whose Glyndebourne debut as Leonore in Fidelio in Festival 2006 was praised by The Times for its ‘passion and ardour’, is the Kostelnička. Robin Ticciati conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

To find out more about production support for Festival 2027 click here
or contact our Director of Development, Helen McCarthy for an informal chat:
call 01273 815032 or email helen.mccarthy@glyndebourne.com

Main image: Yapa Watchanakit/Shutterstock. Image design by Louise Richardson