Janáček’s music consists of an extended recitative, with lush melodies underlying in the orchestra. As the villagers stream into the square to congratulate the couple, someone offstage discovers the body of a baby floating in the stream. It is Jenůfa and Laca’s wedding day - although the bride is dressed in mourning for her son, perhaps for her lost dreams. But the burden of public censure is too much for Kostelnička, who spirits the child away and drowns it in the ice of a nearby river, telling Jenůfa that it died of illness while she was unconscious. He will marry Jenůfa, in spite of her shame. She then calls for the father, Steva, to shoulder his responsibilities, to at least look at the child, but he has moved on and is engaged to the mayor’s daughter. The shame is too much for the upstanding widow (Mattila), who loves and wants to protect her stepdaughter, so she hides Jenůfa away until the child is born. In a backwoods Moravian village, girl meets boy, girl gets boy and boy gets girl pregnant. Spoiler alert: he turns out to be the better man in the end. His stepbrother, Laca, wonderfully played and sung by William Burden, is just the opposite: rejected, despised and unable to express his own love for Jenůfa except through violence.
Scott Quinn is her lover, Steva, weak, unfaithful, cosseted by his grandmother and sought after by all the girls in town. She holds her own with the more seasoned Mattila in their many scenes together. Swedish soprano Malin Byström makes her San Francisco debut in the title role, and both she and her voice are as beautiful as they come. Sensitively conducted by Janáček’s compatriot Jiří Bĕlohlávek, with magnificent work from the orchestra, chorus and soloists, it is a totally immersive experience - dramatically as well as musically - everything opera should be. This is a fitting farewell to outgoing Artistic Director David Gockley one of the best things to take the War Memorial House stage in his decade of outstanding leadership. And I would say she steals the show were it not that everybody else in it is so good.
Now, her gleaming voice burnished with maturity, the great Finnish soprano sings the role of Kostelnička, Jenůfa’s overprotective stepmother, in San Francisco Opera’s totally splendid production of Leoš Janáček’s masterpiece of a folk opera. The last time I saw Karita Mattila in “Jenůfa” she played the title role, a young village girl madly in love with the town ne’er-do-well and secretly carrying his child to boot.
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