\u201cEvery stage work takes on new meanings with each new interpretation.\u201d So reads the opening line of the program notes by dramaturg Marta Ljubkov\u00e1, writing about Jan\u00e1\u010dek Brno Festival<\/a>\u2019s production of \u201cJen\u016ffa.\u201d She was being somewhat disingenuous. What was presented was not a change in emphasis or an exploration of hidden themes; rather, it was a heavy-handed intervention that included a new ending, new text, and, unbelievably, new music, provided by the band VIAH, a pop duo on electric keyboards, who pumped out a sound that was totally at odds with Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s music.<\/p>\n As the audience filed into the auditorium for the beginning of the performance, it was met with an image of artist Jamie McCartney\u2019s \u201cThe Great Wall of Vulva,\u201d consisting of 20 casts of female genitalia. The original work consists of 400 vulvas; its aim is to \u201cshed light on variety, diversity and the absence of a norm\u201d and to draw attention to the pressures women are put under to have aesthetic plastic surgery. It was the opening salvo of a production, directed by Veronika Kos Loulov\u00e1, that reinterpreted \u201cJen\u016ffa\u201d from a woman\u2019s perspective in the 21st century, focused on the psychological difficulties experienced by women during childbirth and the early stages of motherhood.<\/p>\n Without a doubt, it is an interpretation with potential. Jen\u016ffa has been placed in a high-stress situation, the subject of male violence and irresponsibility at the hands of Laca and \u0160teva. She is pregnant, and the father, \u0160teva, has abandoned her, and she is now fearful of the judgement that will be passed by the village community for having an illegitimate baby. She lives alone with Kostelni\u010dka, her stepmother, and the two try desperately to cope, not just with caring for the newborn baby but also having to keep it secret from a close-knit community. Little surprise, therefore, that Jen\u016ffa falls into a pit of despair, aggravating any predisposition for postpartum depression, a condition that can also affect surrogates, such as the Kostelni\u010dka, who finds herself looking after both Jen\u016ffa and the baby.<\/p>\n It started well. Loulov\u00e1 moved the drama to a contemporary setting, for which the scenographer and costume designer, Irina Moscu<\/a>, created a cluttered modern-day apartment, where Jen\u016ffa and the Kostelni\u010dka lived. The grandmother busied herself with household chores, while St\u00e1rek, the mill foreman, and obviously a regular visitor, sat comfortably reading a newspaper at the table and seemed very much at home. Laca had free rein of the house and moved around as if he lived there and did what he liked, as did \u0160teva. The relationships were thus clearly established as close-knit, suffocating and overbearing, which Loulov\u00e1 amplified by accentuating the negative characteristics of the male figures, especially those of Laca and \u0160teva. Laca, in particular, expressed no sign of love towards Jen\u016ffa; rather, he was boorish, crude and cruel, always flashing his knife in front of her, sometimes with her panties twirling on its blade.<\/p>\n By the end of the first act, Loulov\u00e1 had successfully created an oppressive, threatening atmosphere based on intolerance and violence and clearly established Jen\u016ffa\u2019s vulnerability. There were, however, numerous irritations in her presentation, not least the interpolation of amplified texts of reviews from Preissova\u2019s original stage play on which \u201cJen\u016ffa\u201d was based and quotations from members of \u2018A Mother\u2019s Smile,\u2019 a group set up to care for women who have experienced psychological difficulties during pregnancy. They added nothing at all to the drama and brought the momentum to a complete stop. Also, the removal of all folk elements, while understandable given its contemporary setting, undermined the sense of community and therefore the outside pressures exerted on Jen\u016ffa and the Kostelni\u010dka. The folk dances, therefore, also had to be jettisoned, which were replaced by an uncoordinated free-for-all that looked ugly and minimized the impact of the musical contrasts. There were other minor annoyances, but dramatically it worked fairly well.<\/p>\n Act two progressed in a similar vein. The characters were sensitively handled and successfully presented, capturing both Jen\u016ffa\u2019s and the Kostelni\u010dka\u2019s emotional and psychological deterioration under the stresses of the situation. While the Kostelni\u010dka\u2019s anxieties and emotions became more haphazard, Jen\u016ffa looked oblivious to what was happening around her; she looked hollow and exhausted, clearly overwhelmed and unable to cope. Although it was a well-presented act, it was again subject to distracting interventions, this time with an amplified voice listing issues and products relating to new mothers, such as nipple cream.<\/p>\n Act three took the staging in a different direction. The apartment was melded with a wooded glade, into what appeared to be a dreamscape, with its meaning open to interpretation. Was it a projection of Jen\u016ffa\u2019s or the Kostelni\u010dka\u2019s mind? Maybe it was a desire for a better world? Could it have been a representation of the heaven in which her murdered child now resides? Was it a contrast to the hell of a life lived in the apartment? Or was it something completely different? It did not really matter; it proved to be a successful device for encouraging the audience to think about the implications of such possibilities, and as such it was successful.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the final duet between Laca and Jen\u016ffa was cut, so that the opera ended with Jen\u016ffa forgiving the Kostelni\u010dka, who was surrounded by other women in a show of solidarity. This went beyond Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s intentions and felt wholly contrived. It also drew attention away from the legitimate portrayal of Jen\u016ffa, the Kostelni\u010dka and women in general who suffer from male abuse, neglect or lack of understanding, as well as the problem of postpartum depression, which was supposed to be the main focus of Loulov\u00e1\u2019s interpretation and instead highlighted the fact that there was not a single male character with even a modicum of decency or empathy for Jen\u016ffa\u2019s or the Kostelni\u010dka\u2019s conditions. For all his faults, Laca in the end accepts his responsibilities; this excised from the text as it went against the message. Even St\u00e1rek was allowed to sit through Jen\u016ffa\u2019s suffering while being tormented by Laca, just so that he could be shown to be a passive, disinterested male. It verged on propaganda, rather than a nuanced consideration of the problem.<\/p>\n Yet although Loulov\u00e1\u2019s staging was provocative, at times heavy-handed and occasionally irritating, her sure directorial grasp enabled her to fashion a reasonably successful interpretation in which her determination to insert her concerns about postpartum depression was made alongside, although not always within, what was a well-crafted drama. It was, therefore, a pity that she threw it all away by replacing the final duet with a nondescript piece of music by VIAH. It destroyed the effect that she had struggled to create, so that one left the theatre with a wholly negative impression.<\/p>\n The relatively small orchestral force of the Moravian Theatre under the baton of Anna Novotn\u00e1 Pe\u0161kov\u00e1<\/a> created a dramatically stark and compelling reading. Its lean, transparent textures, in which the percussion often thrust itself into the foreground, gave the sound a rawness that sat well with Loulov\u00e1\u2019s staging, which was accentuated by the lack of warmth from the relatively small string section. Pe\u0161kov\u00e1 was always sensitive to the drama\u2019s twists and turns, complementing them with pleasing dynamic contrasts and changes in pace, and the melodies were crisply and deftly executed.<\/p>\n The star of the show was undoubtedly soprano Eli\u0161ka Gattringerov\u00e1<\/a>, who essayed the role of the Kostelni\u010dka, although it was not the usual portrayal one might have expected. In line with Loulov\u00e1\u2019s interpretation, she became a sympathetic character, rather than a hard-headed matriarch, equally concerned about her own reputation as that of Jen\u016ffa\u2019s. Such was her success in presenting the Kostelni\u010dka as a well-intentioned, fundamentally decent woman who was unable to deal with the situation that it appeared completely natural that she should be forgiven by Jen\u016ffa for the murder of her baby. Her singing performance was also wonderfully expressive, in which she captured the anxieties, stresses and fears that led the Kostelni\u010dka into committing such a horrendous crime.<\/p>\n Jen\u016ffa was played by mezzo-soprano Barbora Pern\u00e1<\/a>, who produced an excellent acting performance that captured her mental state perfectly along with all its emotional contradictions. In Act one, she accepted and rebelled against Laca\u2019s aggression, displayed her love for the unworthy \u0160teva, and her contempt for Laca. In Act two, she had collapsed into an exhausted shell of herself. Yet underlying it all, she exuded a sense of decency and love. Her vocal performance was solid rather than exciting or revealing. Her singing was clear and articulate, and she expressed herself forcefully and passionately, but she lacked the frisson, the ability to add nuance and push the voice to the extremes that is necessary to dominate the role.<\/p>\n Tenor Josef Moravec<\/a> was essentially only required to portray Laca\u2019s negative characteristics and to steer clear of anything that might put him in a positive light, and he did it very well; he was frustrated, angry and resentful and simmered with a violence that was ready to explode. Possessing a resonant voice, which at times he could have used with more dynamic subtlety, he was able to intimidate Jen\u016ffa and dominate a scene, as he forcefully pushed his voice into a confrontation.<\/p>\n Tenor Raman Hasymau<\/a> has an agile voice with a pleasing timbre, although it can sound a little thin in the upper register, which he used impressively to capture \u0160teva\u2019s superficial character. Yes, he was pushed into emotionally uncomfortable situations, but he always managed to coat his voice with a veneer of insincerity or immaturity, which fitted perfectly with the tenor of the production.<\/p>\n Mezzo-soprano Sylva \u010cmugrov\u00e1<\/a> gave a clearly defined portrait of Grandmother Buryjovka, making it quite clear that she had no interest in Laca whatsoever.<\/p>\nLoulova\u2019s Provocative Direction<\/h3>\n
Unwelcome Alterations to the Opera<\/h3>\n
A Raw, Exciting Orchestral Reading<\/h3>\n