Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Jenůfa JW 1/4 (1894-1903)
Jenůfa: Agneta Eichenholz (soprano)
Kostelnička: Katarina Karnéus (mezzo-soprano)
Laca: Aleš Briscein (tenor)
Števa: Nicky Spence (tenor)
London Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle
rec. live, 11 & 14 January 2024, The Barbican Hall, London, UK
Czech text & English translation included
Reviewed as a lossless download
LSO Live LSO0897 SACD [2 discs: 125]
This is the third release on the LSO’s home label in their ongoing Janáček opera cycle with Sir Simon Rattle. After the very good The Cunning Little Vixen of 2019, we had the stunning Káťa Kabanová of 2023 released last year. I chose that record as one of my Recordings of the Year. Rattle had Lucy Crowe in the title role for the first record and Amanda Majeski for that Káťa. In the season brochure for 2023/24, Asmik Grigorian was announced to sing Jenůfa. In the event, she withdrew, and the role was taken by the Swedish soprano Agneta Eichenholz. I believe, having heard all three performances and read the recent reviews of 2025’s instalment The Excursions of Mr Brouček; Rattle’s cycle will, when finished and boxed up together, be an essential acquisition and a historic achievement that listeners will return to for many years to come.
Having made that happy prediction for the project I do have to report some reservations with this Jenůfa. The issues I have do not preclude recommendation, but they rule the disc out for me personally as a stand-alone library choice for the opera. That accolade for most collectors will be the famous Decca version made with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1982. Those records were luxuriously cast with Elisabeth Söderström, a wonderful artist, in the title role and, like Agneta Eichenholz, from Sweden. The problem I have is that they are both a little mature for the role: Söderström at almost 55 years of age and Eichenholz at 52.
When Jenůfa was premiered in Brno in 1904, the creator was twenty. Now, it turned out that she was an inexperienced singer who could not finish the run of performances – but let me expound a little further. After Karel Kovařovic, supremo at Prague’s National Theatre, had put the work on in the Czech capital in 1916 (more about that later), the opera became a real success and really put Janáček on the map. The Staatsoper in Vienna staged it in 1918 with native Moravian and legendary singer Maria Jeritza. She was thirty at the time. When she reprised the role at the Met in New York in 1924, she was still only thirty-seven. The opera was not given in the UK until the BBC broadcast it under Rafael Kubelik in 1951. At that performance Gré Brouwenstijn sang Jenůfa, aged thirty-five. When Kubelik eventually staged it at Covent Garden in 1956 he had the great Amy Shuard in the role. She was thirty-two years old. Even if we consider some very recent successes, Asmik Grigorian was forty when she gave it at Covent Garden in 2021, Corinne Winters, aged forty-one at its most recent revival this past January under Jakub Hrůša. I really don’t have an obsession with singers’ ages; I just feel in this work which has three generations of the Buryja family on stage (you could even actually argue four), we should hear the vocal gradation in clearer definition.
For his 1982 record, Mackerras teamed up with experts like John Tyrrell to restore Janáček’s 1908 vocal score to orchestration (the composer had revised the original score in 1906/07). Up to then, all performances had used Karel Kovařovic’s tinkered version. This re-orchestration was the price Janáček had to pay to see his Jenůfa on the big stage. The Mackerras/Tyrrell score was given its first public outing with the Glyndebourne production of 1989 and was published finally in 1996. Rattle uses it obviously and in terms of orchestral colour, texture and virtuosity, he moulds it into the finest sounding account I have heard yet on record.
Whilst opera is always music drama with voices at the heart, Jenůfa has rich orchestral invention and top conductors have always been attracted to it. Ozawa did it memorably during his Viennese tenure and Haitink surprised many (not me) by presenting it as one of his last projects as Music Director at Covent Garden. That performance from 2001 has Karita Mattila (aged forty-one) as Jenůfa, Anja Silja as the Kostelnička, Jorma Silvasti as Laca and the much-missed Jerry Hadley as Števa. It was released on CD by Erato (review). Belohlávek did it for the Met amongst other places and I remember him bringing it to the Royal Festival Hall with the Czech Philharmonic in 2016 (Aleš Briscein sang Laca, as he does here for Rattle). That London concert performance was broadcast on BBC Radio, and I am lucky enough to have a recording of it. I notice too, Thielemann conducted in for Covent Garden whilst still in his late twenties (1988), but I have no recollection of those performances.
The small-town Moravian backwater in which the opera is set, its oppressive conventions, stifling insular intolerance, poverty even, are ever felt in the work. I don’t believe Janáček directly quotes any folk tunes, but the idiom is always there. There is lyrical beauty and grace, yet moments of white heat passion, violence even. There are opportunities for the chorus to shine in Acts 1 and 3. The London Symphony Chorus are excellent as they always are.
Our Jenůfa, Agneta Eichenholz is a little underpowered in the role. I am not bowled over by her timbre, but it is warm, and she is impressive in her mid to upper range. At her first entrance, she is natural and affecting in her “Ó Panno Maria” but she misses the childlike innocence needed for the subsequent scene with Grandmother and Jano. In the scene in Act 1 with Števa and the finale with Laca she does force a little and there is some hardening at forte. Her assumption of Jenůfa is however an overall success. In her first scene of Act 2, dominated by Kostelnička she shows a tenderness and loveliness that is highly appropriate to the glow she feels as a new parent of a tiny child. The love she feels is contrasted with Kostelnička’s chilling anguish “krve, rozumu mně to upíjí” (his very existence is sapping my mind). When she awakes in the empty house, she duets touchingly with LSO leader Benjamin Gilmore who catches that early evening hazy moonlight wonderfully. “Všude tma” is dreamy but her fears and anxieties come too soon. Her “Salve Regina” is very nicely done, tender and serene, high notes projected cleanly at “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”. Rattle’s accompaniment is of course perfection, a joy in this recording I cannot stress strongly enough.
Jenůfa is dazed and overwhelmed at the news her baby died during her supposed delirium, “Mamičko, srdce mi bolí” is her unreal lament. “Give thanks to God, you are free again” are Kostelnička’s consoling words! Agneta Eichenholz’s final scene with Laca is for me, alongside Act 3 her finest scene. Her warmth blossoms as she commits herself to Laca for good. In the final act, she is magnanimity personified, gracious and forgiving with Števa and granting absolution at the last to Kostelnička. Her final “Odešli” is beautiful. She duets gently with Aleš Briscein, her Laca. The healing balm of Janáček’s lovely melodies pours forth generously – what an ending.
Eichenholz’s compatriot, fellow Swede Katarina Karnéus, takes the role of Kostelnička. In contrast to Jenůfa’s lyrical vocal line, Janáček’s music for Kostelnička is tense, cold and edgy. Karita Mattila is probably the leading exponent in the role at the moment, but I was very pleased to hear this fine singer as the scary sacristan. Karnéus is an experienced artist with great technique and her instrument is still in nice condition. We first hear her authoritative tones when she stops the dancing in Act 1 with her “A tak bychom” but it is Act 2, which she dominates, where a singer can really create an impression.
“To ti věřím” (I believe you) she sings with real feeling, empathising with Jenůfa’s sense of unease as the act begins. Her scene with Števa and her enunciation of the text are great. She has clearly studied the role thoroughly. When she arrives at “Podívej se take” she is in magnificent form, bringing Števa (and us) to tears. Later in the act after her scene with Laca she is alone on stage and makes the decision that will change everything forever. She brings power and true conviction to the scene. Listen to her emotion at “Vidíte ji, Kostelničku!”. A little too much? Perhaps, but what passion. The role has such a wide compass. Karnéus successfully manages its demands, and we feel her pain deeply, even if, we cannot forgive like Jenůfa can.
Her torture in Act 3 is palpable and her finale heartfelt. At the very end she does press a little too hard, I feel. Whilst it must have been gripping live, this level of emotion may prove a problem for those of us investing in this CD for repeated home listening. It is a memorable traversal of the great role, though, and one of the highlights of the set.
As Laca we hear the great Czech tenor Aleš Briscein. He has been around a while now and is a mainstay at the National Theatre in Prague and the Staatsoper, Berlin. He makes a specialism of Janáček’s tenor leads and sang in this year’s LSO Brouček (I believe he is booked too for The Makropoulos Case next year). His reading of Laca here for Rattle is excellent, taking us along on his journey from the jealous, disturbed shadowy figure in Act 1 to the rock supporting his beloved at the opera’s apotheosis. His tenor rings out in his Act 2 duet with Kostelnička: “Jenůfka! Potěš tě Pánbůh” (may God bless you) in thrilling clarity. I imagine he would be a superb Grigory in the Boris Godunov “Polish” act. He approaches Grandmother Buryja for her blessing before the wedding in Act 3 with such respect and tenderness. Altogether, his singing is another great success.
The other tenor in the opera is the handsome favourite Števa, sung brilliantly here by Nicky Spence. Arriving under the influence, as it were, he sobers up quickly in his Act 1 duet and we hear his attractive mezza voce and use of head voice. He is also excellent in his scene with the Kostelnička, but in line with some other singers in this version he is a bit too frantic as he darts for the exit. Spence was forty at the time of this recording. He has a super discography of much lieder and song (including a special Janáček disc), a notable Gerontius and opera too. A year after these 2024 concerts with the LSO, he sang Laca for Covent Garden in their most recent staging.
All the other roles are well taken, including the important Grandmother, who is sung by Carole Wilson. Her best scene is the breaking up of the party in Act 1. Incidentally the chorus here “Jděte dom” (Go home) was surely pinched by Herrmann for North by Northwest. Am I the only one who notices that?
In summary, then, this Jenůfa will be highly rated by many and takes its place in what will surely be “the” Janáček cycle of our age. Act timings are 43/50/32. There is so much to commend it. For me the star is Sir Simon Rattle and the marvellous LSO. The horns deserve special praise, but in truth all sections are superb, and the sound is wonderful. For me, it does not replace my favourite recording. For that accolade, I choose Mackerras, but not the one you’re all thinking. I pick his later version for Chandos with Welsh National Opera. This was made in the Summer of 2003 after performances with Susan Chilcott in the title role. Sadly, Susan could not make the records and indeed died a few months after they were made. They were issued to her memory. In the main four roles we hear Janice Watson, Josephine Barstow, Nigel Robson and Peter Wedd. It won’t please everyone and it is in English which will rule it out for many. I adore it, though, and alongside the Decca set, Haitink’s Erato discs and this new LSO Live account, it sits in pride of place in my collection.
Philip Harrison
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Other cast
Grandmother Buryjovka: Carole Wilson (mezzo-soprano)
Foreman/Mayor Jan Martiník (bass)
Mayor’s Wife: Hanna Hipp (mezzo-soprano)
Karolka: Evelin Novak (soprano)
Barena / Herdswoman: Claire Barnett-Jones (mezzo-soprano)
Jano: Erika Baikoff (soprano)
