Opera reviews: Jenufa and Der Ring des Nibelungen

5 / 5 stars
Jenufa

ENGLISH National Opera has long championed the works of the Czech composer Leos Janacek, and with good reason.

Opera, review, Jenufa, Der Ring des Nibelungen, UploadExpress, Clare Colvin PH

Jenufa is a tale about the clash between love and social prejudice

The second revival of David Alden’s award-winning 2006 staging of Jenufa is proof of the composer’s appeal to both ENO’s core audience and operatic first-timers, in its searing tale about the clash between love and social prejudice.

Alden updates the original setting from a traditional Moravian village to a pre-Glasnost industrial estate in the Eastern Bloc. Charles Edwards’s set is a bleak compound where Jenufa’s grandmother (Valerie Reid) works on the family firm’s accounts in the security guard’s hut. The only green in the surrounding concrete is Jenufa’s little pot of rosemary.

Laura Wilde as Jenufa brings out the vulnerable quality of the beauty transformed by desperation as she pleads with her lover Steva (Nicky Spence) to marry her before her pregnancy is discovered. Jenufa’s formidable stepmother, the Kostelnicka or village sacristan, forbids the marriage for a year because of Steva’s drunkenness. 

Jenufa is hidden out of sight in her stepmother’s house during the pregnancy. After the birth, the Kostelnicka, ostensibly to give Jenufa a new start in life, secretly drowns the baby. Retribution inevitably follows.

Michaela Martens’s Kostelnicka is seen less as a religious bigot, more a deeply concerned mother, who remembers her own marriage to a violent drunk. Nicky Spence is a dominating Steva. As his overshadowed brother Laca, Peter Hoare’s angry misfit finds a new maturity through his love for Jenufa – even though he has previously slashed her face to disfigure her. 

The revival is conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, the music director whom ENO lost three months ago. This is English National Opera at its best. Now how about reviving one or two other past ENO productions of Janacek operas, such as Katya Kabanova or The Makropulos Case? 

Opera: the facts

Part epic myth, part family drama, Wagner’s The Ring Of The Nibelung has a compulsive drive that keeps you riveted hour after hour.

Opera North’s concert version completes its Ring Cycle at the Southbank Centre’s Power of Power Festival today with Part 4, Götterdämmerung, in which the hubristic gods, having made a complete hash of ruling through their greed and self-delusion, see their mighty palace Valhalla engulfed in flames.

Opera North’s semi-staging is made accessible to Ring newcomers through Peter Mumford’s video projections using text and atmospheric illustrations. The lack of problematic stage machinery means that we can concentrate entirely on the music, superbly played by Opera North orchestra under music director Richard Farnes.   

In the first part, The Rhinegold, the seeds of the gods’ self-destruction are sown when Wotan (Michael Druiett) reneges on a deal with the giants for building Valhalla. He steals the gold to pay his debt from the Nibelung dwarf Alberich – who in turn had stolen it from the Rhinemaidens. The haul includes the fatal ring cursed by Alberich. 

Outstanding here are James Creswell’s and Mats Almgren’s mafioso giants, Jo Pohlheim’s authoritative Alberich, and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s tricky fire god Loge.  

On to The Valkyrie the following day, where Lee Bissett is transcendent as Sieglinde in love with the heroic Siegmund of Michael Weinius. Kelly Cae Hogan’s Brünhilde  fizzes with energy as she defies Robert Hayward’s heavy father Wotan. Yvonne Howard is a controlling wife Fricka, arguing Wotan into submission to her will. Splendid stuff, and more to come.

The four-part Ring Cycle will be at the Sage Gateshead from 5-10 July. Box office: 0191-443-4666

VERDICT: 4/5

Janacek’s Jenufa at the English National Opera The Coliseum, London WC2 (Tickets:  020 7845 9300/eno.org; £12-£125)

Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Opera North Southbank Centre, London SE1 (Today at 3pm: Gotterdammerung. Tickets: 020 7960 4200/southbankcentre.co.uk; £25-£75)

Would you like to receive news notifications from Daily Express?