[Met Performance] CID:310930



Jenufa
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, December 23, 1992




Jenufa (25)
Leos Jan?cek | Leos Jan?cek/Gabriela Preissov?
Jenufa
Gabriela Benackov?

Laca
Ben Heppner

Kostelnicka
Leonie Rysanek

Steva
Jacque Trussel

Grandmother
Judith Christin

Jano
Joyce Guyer

Foreman
Jeffrey Wells

Barena
Heidi Skok

Maid
Sondra Kelly

Mayor
James Courtney

Mayor's Wife
Joyce Castle

Karolka
Korliss Uecker

Aunt
Loretta Di Franco


Conductor
James Conlon







Review 1:

Review of Martin Mayer in Opera

They dropped the curtain on the final act of "Jenufa" at the Metropolitan Opera on December 23, and a minute later Leonie Rysanek, radiant as always when she knows she has done well, stepped into the lights for a solo call - and the house did raise a universal shout that made great Hudson, if I may, tremble neath her banks to hear the replication of their sound. I've never heard anything quite like it at the Met. This is Rysanek's 35th season here - she made her debut "vice" Callas in Verdi's "Macbeth," following a perfectly dreadful dress rehearsal with a spectacular triumph - and she still sings with the same plangent intensity. Not to mention falling acrobatically to the floor in terror at the sight of Death blowing in through the window. Yes, there were maybe three moments of strain - but that was all. When she reappeared in a duo curtain call with Gabriela Benackov?, her colleague stepped aside, faced towards her instead of the audience, and added her own applause.

Not that Benackov? needed to take a back seat to anyone: she owns this role, so gratefully written for her pure voice, temperamentally so suited to her grave beauty. Add a superb Laca from Ben Heppner (fresh from his triumphant "McTeague" in Chicago), James Conlon's eloquence in the pit, the clarity of the Met orchestral choirs, and Lesley Koenig's clear direction that kept the relations of these characters front and centre - well, it was quite an evening at the Met. Jacque Trussel's Steva was not quite in this league, but its problem was vacuity, which is in part Jan?cek's fault. The supporting cast -especially Judith Christin as Grandmother Buryja, Joyce Guyer as Jano, and Joyce Castle as the Mayor's Wife - were entirely worthy of the principals.



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