Leos Janácek: „Jenufa“ – Akt II, Beginn fünfte Szene - Deutsche Oper Berlin
Dr Takt is our man behind the score. He is very familiar with the work and reveals to us its special moments. This time:
Leos Janácek: “Jenufa” – Act II, start of Scene 5
This is the fourth episode in our series of videos with Dr Takt
Jenufa
Opera in three acts by Leos Janacek
Conductor: Donald Runnicles
Director: Christof Loy
With Renate Behle, Robert Watson, Ladislav Elgr, Evelyn Herlitzius , Rachel Harnisch et al.
12, 17, 25, 31 January 2020
JENUFA (1903) was the opera in which Janácek found his musical voice. The folk music of his Moravian homeland is a key element in the work, as evinced in Scene 5 of Act II, in which the verger’s widow resolves to kill the illegitimate new-born infant of Jenufa, her stepdaughter, to prevent the child from standing in the way of Jenufa’s marriage to another man and the economic security that this would bring. The harmony underlying this action is in B flat minor, a scale in which – as so often in Moravian folk music – some notes are modified by a semi-tone: G flat and A flat change to G and A, and F changes to E. This injection of a tense chord is Janácek’s way of challenging the scene’s basic theme, which appears to be in straight B minor. And from this he develops the widow’s song with its peculiar ending using the A E ‘leap of the fourth’ on the word “zavezla”. This marks a break with operatic convention, but it is in line with sing-song Czech intonation – and is a finely traced portrayal of the widow’s psychological state.
