The astonishing modernity of a rural drama

Finally, and for the first time, Jenůfa at the Maestranza. The theatre heads toward normalcy with another of its pending projects and takes on an essential title of the 20th century. A striking rural drama of crudity and realism that explores themes of infanticide, the tragic consequences which ensue as the outcome of a social severity that judges and morally condemns, jealousy, the alienation which fuels a supposedly “compassionate” murder, redemption and hopes of a better future. Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček sinks its disquieting essence in the imaginary and popular Czech music. And he does this, in the way Milan Kundera describes Janácek as a composer. That is: to say: in a deep reservoir of emotion and with music that is entirely charged by expression; and in an intense duel between the characters of the soprano -Jenůfa- and the mezzo soprano -Kostelnicka- portrayed by Agneta Eichenholz and Ángeles Blancas.

German Will Humburg, whom we remember in Seville in an excellent Lucia di Lammermoor in 2012, conducts the stage production by Canadian Robert Carsen, one of the most exciting contemporary regisseurs, whose vision of the piece is an intimate, private, sober Jenůfa but which, at the same time, is dazzling and visually beautiful.

A stripped down and intense opera with an overwhelming score, Jenůfa is a classic of contemporary modernity, and with its presentation at the Teatro de la Maestranza, we finally see it -after a long wait- on the stage.

Libretto by Leoš Janáček. Premiere at the National Theatre in Brno on 21 January 1904.