[Met Performance] CID:282290



Jenufa
Metropolitan Opera House, Tue, October 22, 1985

Debut : Judith Haddon


In English



Jenufa (20)
Leos Janácek | Leos Janácek/Gabriela Preissová
Jenufa
Judith Haddon [Debut]

Laca
Timothy Jenkins

Kostelnicka
Mignon Dunn

Steva
Graham Clark

Grandmother
Geraldine Decker

Jano
Betsy Norden

Foreman
James Courtney

Barena
Dawn Upshaw

Maid
Batyah Godfrey Ben-David

Mayor
Spiro Malas

Mayor's Wife
Jean Kraft

Karolka
Ariel Bybee

Aunt
Lucille Beer


Conductor
Václav Neumann







Review 1:

Review of Martin Mayer in Opera

The new season's first month at the Metropolitan also offered two great Slavic operas, a rarity in these parts, especially when neither of them is by Tchaikovsky. Janacek's Jenufa was receiving its first hearing in New York since 1974-5, when Rafael Kubelik deserted us because he had a feud with the management of which he had been a part, and Gunther Rennert gave us a staging as colourless as Schneider-Siemssen's sets in which distorted perspective is asked to carry quite an emotional weight. Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina," in a new production, was being heard here for the first time since 1950. At the performances 1 attended, fairly late in the run, both operas rained credit on their conductors, Vaclav Neumann and Neeme Jarvi respectively, but were otherwise a little drier of reasons for approbation.

The October 22 Jenufa was the occasion for Judith Haddon's Met debut in the title-role. She was nervous and the voice was edgy in Act 1 but after that she delivered a sound and thoughtful performance, lacking only that last bit of presence and beauty that dominates the stage. Graham Clark impressed as a bright-voiced Steva and Timothy Jenkins was an effective bear of a Laca. Mignon Dunn shook the rafters vocally (that voice is spectacularly well preserved), but put Kostelnicka on such an edge of hysteria that the character rolled off into implausibility at the climaxes. As the evening went on, I found myself watching Neumann's head and shoulders and stick, for pleasure and instruction.



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