Through the end of the month, Gaetano Donizetti’s breezy “Daughter of the Regiment” and composer Leo Janácek’s “Jenufa” share a stage at Lyric Opera, and not much else.
“Jenufa” premiered in 1904, a year after the illness and death of Janácek’s daughter. That trauma seeped into every brutal detail of “Jenufa.” When we meet the title character (soprano Lise Davidsen, in a hotly anticipated Lyric debut), she’s pregnant out of wedlock and besotted with teva (tenor Richard Trey Smagur), the alcoholic, immature father of her child. Unfortunately for Jenufa, teva’s brooding half brother Laca (tenor Pavel Cernoch), ever overlooked by their family, also loves her. During a tussle, the embittered Laca cuts a gash in Jenufa’s face, declaring that he is the only person that would still love her if she were disfigured.
Laca isn’t the only person who has a funny way of showing how much he loves Jenufa. The Kostelnicka (soprano Nina Stemme, last at Lyric for 2019’s “Elektra”) — Jenufa’s stepmother and a moral paragon in their parochial Moravian village — shelters Jenufa while she comes to term with teva’s baby, ostensibly to shield her from others’ disapproval. In truth, the Kostelnicka is more concerned with her own God-fearing reputation, not Jenufa’s. When it becomes clear Jenufa cannot reenter society as a single mother, the Kostelnicka sedates her and drowns her baby boy in an icy stream.
Somehow, the opera ends with Jenufa forgiving both of them — and marrying Laca, too. Go figure.
Though “Jenufa” became his first major opera, Janácek was, by then, already a gifted dramatist. He adapted its libretto from Gabriela Preissová’s play “Její pastorkyna” (“Her Stepdaughter”); that, and his dazzling score — whose techniques and orchestration prefigure the rest of the long 20th century — are rife with symbolism. Flowers are a recurring motif in both the libretto and original director Claus Guth’s production, first seen at London’s Royal Opera House: Guth incorporates yellow flowers into every act, forecasting “Jenufa’s” happy-ish ending. (They carpet the floor in Act 3; with the white-walled anonymity and symmetrical furniture placements of the rest of Michael Levine’s set, it gives déja vu to that designer’s autumnal “Eugene Onegin,” seen here in 2017.) Most effectively, the shutters of the Kostelnicka’s house — symbols of furtiveness, of shame — inspire a set piece which acts as a second curtain throughout.
That about does it for the high points of Guth’s production. The rest is heavy-handed and cynical. In Act 2, we catch up to Jenufa trapped in a cagelike nest of iron bed frames, a twin reference to her pregnancy and drug-induced slumber — an interesting idea in concept, if not execution. In a matter of minutes, an anthropomorphic crow and bloodied, shirtless child actor process across the stage. Why not just scream “ teva Jr. is about to die!” through a bullhorn? It’d be more oblique, and cheaper.
By gender-swapping a supporting role in Act 1, Guth eradicates the libretto’s own subtler foreshadowing. Jano, the adoring shepherd boy Jenufa has taught to read, becomes Jana (Ryan Opera Center soprano Kathryn Henry, her voice sweet and bright). Jano serves no real dramatic function except to represent the boy Jenufa’s son might have grown into — all the more painful because it is Jano who announces the discovery of the baby’s corpse in Act 3. Janácek tees Guth up perfectly, but he’d rather play pickleball with the giant crow.
Why this “Jenufa” is still worth seeing, despite a production that makes an Olympic sport of condescending to viewers’ intelligence, is all due to its musical talent. It’s rare for Lyric to gather so many stars under one roof, with Davidsen and Stemme in lead roles and Czech phenom Jakub Hru a — lately a Chicago Symphony favorite — conducting in the pit.
Davidsen sang Jenufa in a concert version of the opera two years ago but her Lyric appearance marks her staged debut in the role. Industryites are no doubt taking notice: Peter Gelb, general director of the Metropolitan Opera, attended Wednesday’s matinee.
May it be a role she lives in for years to come, so others can experience what Chicago audiences did this past week. Davidsen’s epic voice beams across the Lyric’s Ardis Krainik Theatre at any register, wending and limpid as a stream. Jenufa is a bit of a cardboard cutout in Janácek’s libretto — one of its few but glaring weaknesses — but Davidsen manages to make her feel whole, touchable. Make the trip to hear her alone.
One feels for Davidsen’s fellow principals, who all needed some time to heat up to her wattage. Besides an underwhelming Act 1 entrance, Stemme has nicely transitioned from Jenufa, a role she once sang to great acclaim, to the more russetty Kostelnicka, her voice big and hair-raisingly icy up top. Smagur was both mild and messy in his Act 1 scenes, and not just because of his fake drunkenness. Luckily, he sobered up vocally in the latter two acts, his delivery compacting into a dense cannonball of a tenor.
Cernoch, his foil, is a musical and dramatic magnet, stalking around the stage with a coiled-spring intensity that explodes into a thrilling, refulgent, heartfelt voice. Laca is the hardest of all to render believably, and Cernoch nails it.
Mezzo-soprano Marianne Cornetti is mighty as Grandmother Buryja — in a welcome splash of personality in this otherwise faceless staging, all “Jenufa’s” matriarchs are strong and steely. Tara Wheeker stepped in admirably for Ryan Opera Center soprano Lindsey Reynolds as Barena, a friendly villager who pops up in Act 3. Bass-baritone Wayne Tigges and mezzo Katherine DeYoung eke verve and fine vocalism out of their own brief cameos in the same act as the village mayor and his wife.
Under Hru a, the Lyric orchestra ratchets up its own high standard, sounding glorious and gutsy. Many great “Jenufas” out there are skinny and hard-edge, but Hru a’s has more meat on its bones. Syncopations fill every inch of their allotted space; dotted rhythms are springy; lyrical lines snuggle around the libretto’s text like a well-tailored suit. One only wished he’d pump the brakes in a couple key scenes: Between Hru a’s forward momentum and Guth’s chaotic stage action, Jenufa’s stabbing and its fallout, for instance, feels blink-and-you-miss-it abrupt.
But the Kostelnicka’s declaration of baby teva’s death in Act 2 hits just as sickeningly as you’d expect, with a caesura and savage chords: one, two. They ring in one’s ear, long after all has been forgiven.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
Review: “Jenufa” (3 stars)
When: Through Nov. 26
Where: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes (including two intermissions)
Tickets: $41-$339 at 312-827-5600 and www.lyricopera.org