Janácek's Jenufa
English National Opera, 9-28 October 2006
Director: David Alden
Conductor: Mikhail Agrest
In October, English National Opera mounted a brand new production of Janácek's opera, Jenufa, which brought back to the London Coliseum, director David Alden, after an absence of 10 years. It also introduced the young Russian conductor, Mikhail Agrest, who made his UK opera debut to outstanding critical acclaim. The production included Amanda Roocroft in the title role, Catherine Malfitano (Kostelnicka), Stuart Skelton (Laca), Paul Charles Clarke (Steva) and Iain Paterson (Foreman).
The Times said of Jenufa's opening night: 'It's a show everyone should see'.
Jenufa wins Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production
David Alden has won the coveted award for Best New Opera Production at the 2007 Olivier Awards.
The award was presented during the ceremony at the Grosvenor House hotel in London for his critically acclaimed production of Janacek's Jenufa at the English National Opera which opened in October 2006. Alden will now take this production to Washington National Opera where it will open on May 5th this year. Alden said on receiving his award, “I’m thrilled, we were up against very stiff opposition. English National Opera is a great great company and deserves as much recognition it can get.” There were further honours for Alden's production when Amanda Roocroft won the Outstanding Achievement in Opera award for her portrayal the Czech girl whose baby is killed by her stepmother in an act of misjudged kindness.
Reviews for David Alden
"David Alden's profound new staging of Janácek's first great opera."
Richard Morrison, The Times
"Alden's staging is still highly effective...Alden establishes the opera's complicated web of relationships…with impressive efficiency."
Warwick Thompson
"David Alden has created a production which breathes warmth and humanity into Janacek's bleak tale…Touches of humour broadened the emotional palette. All was beautifully judged on stage."
Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard
"Alden…directs his cast, generating a truthfulness of gesture and a tension of relationship."
Andrew Clark, Financial Times
"Few productions I've seen there make better use of this space than David Alden's Jenufa, where daylight is filtered through a vast polluted sky...
Alden's updating of Jenufa to the years before the Czech Republic broke away from Mother Russia... is without doubt one in which this cruel story of bad-parenting achieves extra layers of meaning, and one in which one's assumptions about the characters are continually challenged... It takes nerve to make a work in which one expects to feel overwhelming sorrow for Jenufa, and sometimes for the Kostelnicka, into one in which every event is leading towards Laca's disbelieving stumble into Jenufa's arms, still terrified by the prospect of finally being loved. Alden flirts with our expectations, allowing Jenufa to laugh off Laca's threatened violence with an electric screw-driver as horse-play long before his attack with the knife. Iain Paterson's sharpening of this weapon, as the Foreman, is subtly emphasized, and offset by Susan Gorton's comic Grandmother, and some beautifully detailed chorus direction."
Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday
The director, David Alden... impresses with the sureness with which he allows music and movement to flow together, and with the clear space he puts round every gesture.
Paul Driver, Sunday Times
Reviews for Mikhail Agrest
"Mikhail Agrest conducted Janacek's wonderful score with a great sense of its fractured wholeheartedness, seizing its fleeting ecstasies like they might vanish before he could."
Edward Seckerson, The Independent
"Mikhail Agrest, a 30-year-old Russian, brings singer-friendly temperament, Slavic definition and a sensitive touch to the beautiful score. The orchestra is transformed; even the violin solos sound luscious."
Andrew Clark, Financial Times
"The Russian conductor Mikhail Agrest led an impassioned account of the score… the orchestral detailing was sumptuously realised."
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
"Mikhail Agrest… has the measure of Janácek's obsessive rhythms and ebbing passions."
Richard Morrison, The Times
"… beguiling orchestral playing, conducted by Mikhail Agrest in his house debut. He handled all the pulsating accompaniments and melodic inventions with enormous clarity, pacing everything carefully to the work's radiant end."
Fiona Maddocks, The Evening Standard
"Mikhail Agrest, of the Mariinsky Theatre… conducts a vibrant and exciting performance, bringing out the distinctive colours of Janacek's wonderful score."
Simon Thomas, musicomh.com
"It is also, thanks to the highly perceptive conductor Mikhail Agrest, a galvanized orchestra..."
Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday
"On his ENO debut, the suave Russian conductor Mikhail Agrest ensures that this is an evening as distinguished musically as theatrically."
Anthony Holden, The Observer
Production images by Clive Barda. Visit his website at www.clivebarda.com