Why Jenufa is the GOAT opera
Jenufa is an opera by Leoš Janáček. When I listened to it for the first time, I instantly hated it. The second time, I disliked it. The third time, I felt apathetic. The fourth time, I enjoyed it. By the fifth time, I loved it. In my opinion, opera was perfected with Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. However, opera was perfected again with Jenufa.
The opera takes place in a conservative Moravian village. The titular Jenufa is in love with a man (Steva) who does not care for her. Unbeknownst to him, she is pregnant with his child and anxiously awaits his proposal. His half-brother (Laca) is madly in love with Jenufa and deeply jealous of Steva. Jenufa's stepmother is the Kostelnička (a religious elder) who loathes Steva. The TL;DR is that Jenufa gives birth out of wedlock, and to save her stepdaughter's honor, the Kostelnička drowns the newborn baby in frozen waters. In spring, the baby’s body is discovered. The villagers are ready to stone Jenufa until the stepmother confesses that she was the one who drowned the child.
What does Jenufa do?
In an almost ethereal clarity, Jenufa forgives her.
"Ah, Mother, now I understand. We must not curse her, we must not condemn her," she sings.
Even after this horrifying betrayal, Jenufa understands why her stepmother acted as she did. For a woman who strays from societal laws, the stigma is unimaginable. In such a patriarchal society, women are at the mercy of men who may enact violence against them. Laca, for example, scars Jenufa when she does reciprocate his affections. The Kostelnička may have drowned the baby to protect her own honor (Jenufa is her stepdaughter, after all), but it was ultimately a heinous sin borne out of love. The Kostelnička is arrested and taken away. Jenufa is left alone, except for Laca. Laca is ashamed of his violent act Jenufa and promises to spend his entire life atoning for his sin.
At the end, the entire village knows what has happened. They know she is a "fallen" woman. But let me say, it is one of the most hopeful endings I have ever seen in an opera. There’s this production of Jenufa that I love because, at the ending, the lighting evokes the promise of a new dawn. Women tend to die in opera. Even if they are heroines, if they stray from the proper conduct of a "proper" woman, they are punished with death. But Jenufa doesn’t die. In the final scene, the music swells with strings, and there’s this beautiful brass that plays as if heralding the grand triumph of a conqueror. Three notes in succession form a melodic line that sounds like divine favor. I don’t know how to describe it, but I tell people: the last few minutes of Jenufa feel like being forgiven. You can’t help but weep as Jenufa, who has suffered so terribly, will live.
That is triumph, I think: To have had so many terrible things done to you, yet to live and move forward.