The storyline is very powerful and emotive but this production introduced several unnecessary features that just distracted rather than emphasized the grimness.ĭesigning the home Jenufa was hidden away in as some sort of cage was, I thought, rather overdoing the symbolism, as was the appearance of a large raven on the roof, pacing to and fro and looking in on the action. In any normal cast Mattila’s decay from rigid authority to howling animal, voice flayed down to sinew and rasp, would set her apart, but here she’s just the disintegrating centre of a flawless ensemble cast – from Elena Zilio’s Grandmother, held together by dignity and black velvet, and Nicky Spence’s profoundly moving Laca, rash and loving and radiantly sung, to Saimir Pirgu’s strutting Steva.The music and the performance cannot be faulted but sadly I felt the same could not be said of German director Klaus Guth's contribution. It has been over 20 years since we had a new Jenůfa at Covent Garden.Ī generation’s gap that has transformed 2001’s searing Jenůfa – the towering Finnish soprano Karita Mattila – into Kostelnicka, the heroine’s church-elder stepmother, whose fear and pride drive the murder of the illegitimate baby that’s still the most shocking act in a repertoire full of horrors. Finnish soprano Karita Mattila as Kostelnicka in JenůfaĬaught between half-brothers Steva and Laca, we see her most private encounters played out in relation to the group – even a disfiguring knifing isn’t a human tragedy so much as a deviation from uniformity, quickly concealed behind a modesty-curtain of women.
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