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Enchanted forest

Michael Tanner

Wednesday, 26th November 2008

Hänsel und Gretel
Royal Academy of Music

Jenufa
Birmingham Hippodrome

Pelléas et Mélisande
Sadler’s Wells

Two evenings later I was in Birmingham, and so was she, for Jenufa from the Welsh National Opera. Here she was still more impressive, indeed her conducting was inspired from first to last, effecting miracles where Janáček’s invention momentarily falters, and rising to extraordinary heights in the terrifying Act II and the sublime ending of the work. This was truly a great occasion, and though I have a tendency to think that every Jenufa I see is the greatest yet, so staggering is this opera’s impact, I would place this with the greatest accounts I have seen, under Kubelik and at Glyndebourne with Anja Silja as the Kostelnicka. I had thought that Silja had hijacked that part, but Susan Bickley proved me wrong. She may have been even more moving, from her bitter recitation of her past in Act I, through the fearful decision to murder Jenufa’s baby in Act II, to the unhinged wreck of Act III. Nothing else I have seen this singer do has approached this in intensity and conviction; and in Nuccia Focile’s unbearably vulnerable Jenufa she had the perfect partner. Sian Edwards went out of her way to emphasise the contrast between the serene but anxious warmth of Jenufa’s music and the varieties of stridency of everyone else’s, until in the closing minutes the repentant Laca comes to share Jenufa’s generosity of spirit. Reluctant as I am to enter any reservation about an experience which was so uplifting and so devastating, I did wish that Jenufa’s two suitors would cool down a bit vocally. Peter Hoare’s Laca was the bigger offender, bellowing lines that should be part of intimate exchanges; Stephen Rooke’s Steva, villain of the piece, was more moderate, but also both looked and behaved, wrongly, in a dignified, restrained way, which I can’t think was part of the production, and certainly looked — as he needn’t — too senior. This was a virtually flawless evening, and I’m sure that if more of the inhabitants of England’s second largest city had turned up for it they would have agreed. In a persuasive article in WNO’s annual booklet the writer suggests that Jenufa would make an ideal first opera for an opera virgin, and although that may sound surprising, on reflection I think they may well be right — it would remove so many prejudices and preconceptions that people have against the form.