BWW Reviews Italy, Part II: Singers Battle Production - and Win - in JENUFA at Bologna Teatro Comunale

After I read that the new production of Leos Janacek's JENUFA at the beautiful Teatro Comunale in Bologna originated at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels--home of some of the most over-the-top conceits in the opera world--I thought I was ready for anything. I was wrong.

Janacek's music is 20th century, but only barely, written around the turn of the century and premiering in 1904. It is a soaring masterpiece, filled with melody, passion and charm, some of the music recalling folksongs of Janacek's native Moravia (though he refrains from ever being folksy). Its action is of the verismo school of modernity, recounting the cruelties of daily life for the working class, who can never escape their misery.

Here, the concept and scenic design from Latvian director Alvis Hermanis (costumes by Anna Watkins and lighting by Gleb Filshtinsky) do their best to destroy this great opera. Luckily, the performance I saw on April 22 featured an outstanding cast that refused to be foiled by the unsympathetic, unmusical approach and triumphed.

Headed by Latvian soprano Ira Bertman (Jenufa), Munich-born Spanish soprano Angeles Blancas Gulin (Kostelnicka) and Czech tenor Jan Vacik (Laca), the singers were true to the music, dramatically forceful and frequently soaring in their parts. In particular, the powerful voices of Bertman and Gulin melded the poignant with the tragic to shattering effect. But for all the context provided by the director, they probably would have done better in a concert staging, given the strong performance of the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale under Czech conductor Juraj Valcuha (chief of the Italian Radio Symphony) and the opera's chorus under Andrea Faidutti.

Hermanis chose to focus on the folkloric aspects of the work in Acts I and III, when the composer includes some limited but effective use of the chorus, while Act II portrays social realism in the style of an Eastern Bloc kitchen sink drama, circa 1960. Neither is an invalid approach on paper, but the juxtaposition did not work, except in upstaging the music.

In Acts I and III, Hermanis presented the main characters, front and center, as cutouts in fanciful costumes, with stylized gestures; he then set out to upstage them by using a Grecian-frieze line of formalized dancing, by choreographer Alla Sigalova, in a letterbox cutout behind them. (If it was supposed to supply context to the proceedings, I'm not sure what that would be.) It's as if someone told the director that no one likes opera anymore and to do his best to distract the audience from the action, in any way possible. This also included some pretty projections of the art nouveau poster style innovated by Czech-born Alphonse Mucha, which really had no relation to the rest of the concept, except for being contemporaneous with Janacek's work.

Act II begins the snowballing of tragic events--Jenufa's pregnancy out of wedlock, Steva's (in a nice turn by Czech tenor Ales Brischein) rejection of her, Kostelnicka's drowning of the child--that send the story towards its grim conclusion. Here, the director inflicts an unrelated, bleak style on the production--a television set, a refrigerator and a bed for Jenufa's infant--one that, yes, suits the storyline, but bears no relation to the first act, or the act to follow.

The opera--and audiences--deserve better than mortadella. That's Italian for the kind of "baloney" served up by Hermanis.

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Photo by Rocco Casaluci

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