Jenůfa

Janáček's Jenůfa is set in a small Moravian village where everyone knows everything and privacy is impossible. The young Jenůfa is pregnant by the charismatic Števa, who won't marry her. Her devout stepmother — the most trusted woman in the village — hides her during the pregnancy, delivers the child, and then does something to the baby that the opera spends the rest of its running time reckoning with. Janáček's score is unlike any other opera composer's: speech-rhythmic, fragmented, and unnervingly modern, built from short musical phrases that accumulate into something overwhelming. The power of the work comes from how ordinary everyone is — not villains, but people who love imperfectly under unbearable pressure. Asmik Grigorian, one of the defining opera performers of the current era, takes the title role in this new co-production with Chicago's Lyric Opera and London's Royal Opera House.