Germany Janáček, Jenůfa: Soloists, Staatsopernchor Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin / Axel Kober (conductor). Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 7.1.2024. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director – Damiano Michieletto
Revival director – Marcin Łakomicki
Set designs – Paolo Fantin
Costumes – Carlo Teti
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti
Choreography – Thomas Wilhelm
Refrain director – Dani Juris
Solid:
Grandmother Buryja – Hanna Schwarz
Kostelnička Buryja – Rosie Aldridge
Jenůfa – Vida Miknevičiūtė
Laca Klemeń – Stephan Rügamer
Števa Buryja – Pavol Breslik
Foreman – Grigory Shkarupa
Jano – Victoria Randem
Barena – Adriane Queiroz
Mayor – David Oštrek
Mayor’s Spouse – Natalia Sckrycka
Karolka – Maria Kokareva
Herdswoman – Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein
Auntie – Rebecka Wallroth
Voices – Olga Vilenskaia, Ben Bloomfield
Damiano Michieletto’s 2021 manufacturing of Jenůfa, now receiving its first revival, provides a comparatively easy retelling of the story with out prettifying or sentimentalising. Paolo Fantin’s set designs are stark: semi-transparent, enabling one to see, as in a small rural neighborhood, most of what’s going on, while nonetheless sustaining some extent of secrecy. It is a world of violence and poverty, and so it feels, while avoiding undue specificity: the extent of abstraction is such that the message needn’t be restricted to anyone milieu. That permits a level of symbolism, maybe not solely in contrast to Olivier Tambosi’s 2001 Covent Backyard manufacturing (my first, with Bernard Haitink and Karita Mattila no much less).
Ice/water is central to Michieletto’s conception. There’s something icy to the partitions, however extra essentially, not in contrast to Tambosi’s big boulder, though the opposite method up, an iceberg descends from the ceiling or sky. It hems within the motion to various extents, in accordance (I assume) to the emotional and broader dramatic temperature. Števa hacks a block of ice to items, with violence surprising each in itself and in its childishness, when he has been rejected for conscription. Jenůfa’s youngster is buried and preserved within the ice too, in fact, that discovery frightening the ultimate reckoning and thus enabling the appearance of some restricted hope and right here, actually, daylight for Jenůfa and Laca. And its melting offers a downpour to punish, symbolically at the very least, the Kostelnička.
The neighborhood, arguably the true villain right here – Števa is just too weak to deserve such billing – is represented by just a few actors, whose shifting form and position say most of what must be mentioned. We are able to fill within the gaps, convey one thing to the desk ourselves, or just watch issues ‘straight’. Whether or not the refrain’s putting, largely offstage, was at the very least partially a response to pandemic restrictions, I have no idea, nevertheless it works, maybe paradoxically, to reinforce the onstage claustrophobia. The Kostelnička’s abiding religiosity, for higher and for worse, involves the foreground in her little shrine.
Choral singing was good, though coordination with stage and pit typically went awry. Certainly, conductor Axel Kober’s coordination of his totally different forces usually left one thing to be desired, the opening significantly awry, each in that respect and regarding stability of orchestral strains. By and enormous, Kober gave a adequate impression of the rating with out penetrating deeper. The Staatskapelle Berlin responded in type, usually greater than that. However the place the musical motion ought to erupt, forcing itself into our consciousness as a literal matter of life or demise, Kober appeared largely content material to supply an accompaniment to scenic motion: involving sufficient, however an accompaniment nonetheless. There was little sense, at the very least from the orchestral route, of the composer’s speech rhythms figuring out line and kind (absolutely an important argument for preferring Janáček within the authentic Czech).
The solid did a greater job in that respect and others. Vida Miknevičiūtė appears very a lot to be a soprano of the second, unable to place a foot (or word) flawed. Her assumption of the title position proved no exception: no mere sufferer, however a considerably headstrong younger girl, who made selections of her personal in addition to struggling these of others. Right here was to be heard a particular command of the composer’s writing and its dramatic implications, in addition to stage presence and collegiality. The identical may very well be mentioned of her colleagues, Rosie Aldridge a compassionate but damaged Kostelnička, Hanna Schwarz nonetheless an estimable pressure as Grandmother Buryja. Pavol Breslik skilfully trod a tightrope as Števa, keenly alert to the character’s contemptible weak point, while sustaining attract and vocal safety. Stephan Rügamer’s Laca grew in stature as Števa receded from our – and Jenůfa’s – consciousness. Sterling work was carried out within the smaller roles, Maria Kokareva’s Karolka, Natalia Sckrycka’s Mayor’s Spouse, and Victoria Randem’s Jano shining examples for me. There was effective ensemble work right here, through which it was rightly troublesome to differentiate between singing and appearing.
Mark Berry
