Word: jenufa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...spectacular philandering. In less amorous moments, he found time to compose three minor operas and The Excursions of Mr. Brouček, a light, satirical tale about a flight to the moon and the Hussite wars of the 15th century. He also wrote one powerful but somber verismo work: Jenufa, the story of a village girl made pregnant by the local womanizer, whose formidable foster mother kills her baby...
...unfortunate production of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, an attenuated musical rumination exquisitely ill-suited to a house of the Met's proportions. Last week the company used its resources to far better effect. It revived Czech Composer Leos Janáček's Jenufa, last heard at the Met 50 years ago in a production starring Maria Jeritza. Still looking glamorous at 87, Jeritza watched opening night from the front left box. She was applauded warmly at the first intermission...
...Jenufa 's slow recognition in the U.S. bears coincidental resemblance to its composer's career. If ever there was a late bloomer, it was Janáček. A Moravian, he was professor of composition but wrote little of consequence himself before he was 40. He completed Jenufa in 1903 when he was 49. It received its "overnight" success a dozen years later. He wrote several other operas, including From the House of the Dead, which is almost a speculation on Dostoyevsky's novel, and The Makropoulos Affair, a fantastic showpiece for orchestra...
Rimmed World. Though it can be placed well enough among turn-of-the-century verismo works, Jenufa is an elusive opera in some ways. The setting is a Moravian village, and the composer knew its inhabitants with detachment and compassion. He creates no heroes, but a world of people working, flirting, taking naps, worrying about saving face or avoiding the draft. The plot, however, concerns deadly primal emotions: love, jealousy and ambition. Jenufa is pregnant by števa, a wastrel who chases every girl in town. Jenufa still hopes to catch him, but her world is invisibly rimmed...