JENUFA Receives its Santa Fe Opera Premiere

On Saturday, July 20, the Santa Fe Opera will introduce Leoš Janá?ek's Jen?fa to audiences for the first time in the company's 63 year history. A co-production between Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera and the English National Opera, David Alden's production of Jen?fa, now adapted to the Santa Fe Opera's stage, updates the mis-en-scène from an isolated, tight-knit community in 19th-century Moravia to an impoverished industrial section of Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. Alden's staging won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production when it was produced at the English National Opera, and its 2016 revival there received additional critical acclaim. The Independent gave it a five-star review, headlining it as "brilliantly effective." The Sunday Times proclaimed, "David Alden's staging...takes this coruscating music-drama a notch higher, turning the screw of the drama inexorably, shatteringly, ultimately movingly. Janá?ek's uplifting conclusions...is one of the most beautiful 'happy ends' in opera."

Jen?fa centers on a terrible crime - the drowning of the title character's newborn infant in an icy river. Jen?fa's stepmother Kostelni?ka commits this unspeakable act out of a sense of fear, misguided morality, and perhaps most shockingly, out of a sense of love in hoping to give her stepdaughter a better life. Remarkably, the opera's overriding theme is forgiveness, as Jen?fa reacts not with calls for vengeance, but with tender absolution - a scene set to some of Janá?ek's most radiant music. The Rough Guide to Opera states, "Janá?ek's operas are amongst the most powerful, accessible and distinctive ever written: once he had found his voice in Jen?fa, his personal style - terse, lyrical, pungently characterized, full of colorful orchestration and rhythmic bite - was recognizable in every bar he wrote. Though Janá?ek was born the year after Verdi completed La traviata, his best music belongs decisively to the 20th-century: the last four operas and several other masterpieces were composed in an astonishing burst of creativity in the last decade of his life."

The Santa Fe Opera's first showing of Jen?fa brings Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company Johannes Debus to the pit in his Santa Fe Opera debut. American soprano and former Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Laura Wilde will once again assume the title role in her company debut, having also performed it for London audiences in the ENO's 2016 revival. American soprano Patricia Racette, the original Jen?fa when this production first appeared in Houston and Washington, will debut the role of Kostelni?ka. American mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer returns to the Santa Fe Opera stage in the role of Grandmother Buryjovka. The rival half-brothers will be sung by Australian tenor Alexander Lewis as Laca, making his company debut, and American tenor and former Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Richard Trey Smagur as Števa. Former Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Will Liverman sings the role of the Foreman at the Mill. Charles Edwards (scenic design), Jon Morell (costume design), and Duane Schuler (lighting design) round out the Creative Team. Susanne Sheston serves as Chorus Master.

Jen?fa is the fourth of five mainstage shows in the Santa Fe Opera's 2019 Season.

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