The NBR New Zealand Opera's Jenufa is an operatic landmark in this country. We have waited too long to experience the genius of this Janacek opera which, though set in a Moravian village a century ago, has a truth and relevance that still resonates today.
There might be
grim goings-on in the course of the opera, but the heroine's transcendence over them is our reward.
Working within Tobias Hoheisel's imaginative sets - particularly impressive in the two interior scenes - Nikolaus Lehnhoff's 19-year-old production makes much of an almost inexorably turning waterwheel in Act One, the folding of sheets in Act Two and the central table in the final act, presided over by Helen Medlyn's slightly bemused grandmother.
Jenufa's world is framed within these settings, whether pursuing her often strained family relationships, tightly directed by Ashley Dean, or suffering the wrath of a folk-dancing chorus who turn frighteningly malevolent in the final act.
French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels was a radiant Jenufa, soaring with the purest lyricism in her Act 2 Salve Regina.
Derek Hill, substituting for an indisposed Jamie Allen, was a serviceable Steva, though hardly convincing as a testosterone-driven village Lothario.
On the other hand, Tom Randle's robustly sung Laca, like Duprels' Jenufa, was a character developed subtly throughout the evening. Their final duet was inspirational, completed as it was by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in almost Wagnerian splendour.
Indeed, in both detail and overall sweep, Janacek's score benefited from the care and the expertise of conductor Wyn Davies.
While local singers offered a succession of sharp cameos, from Emma Roxburgh's boyish Jano to Richard Green and Carmel Carroll as a petit bourgeois mayoral couple, Margaret Medlyn's Kostelnicka stole the show. This was a tour de force for the soprano. There are only three more performances of this superb night at the theatre.
