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3.2 From 1904 to 1906
As mentioned in CHAPTER 1, it was suggested by Bohumír Štědroň on the basis of a
letter from Janáček to Kovařovic that the first layer of post-première revisions to
Jenůfa may have been made as early February 1904. 7 On the whole, however, this
seems unlikely. Firstly, Janáček may well have been referring in that letter to
revisions made before the première, i.e. those made by October 1903. 8 Furthermore,
all the available performance material would still have been at the Brno theatre (the
autograph manuscript, still in Janáček’s possession at this stage, had already been
rendered effectively redundant as performance material because of the pre-première
revisions made to both ŠFS and ŠVS, as outlined above). Whilst ŠVS may possibly
have been available to Janáček, enabling him to make changes to the voice parts, the
singers would already have learnt their parts, making any significant alterations to
their lines unlikely from a practical point of view. Furthermore, the evidence of the
orchestral parts suggests that, with minor exceptions (most notably the removal of an
harmonically awkward anticipatory motif for cello and bassoon before the beginning
of the Kostelnička’s Act 3 confession), 9 the first substantive changes (a) occurred
largely in the form of cuts and (b) appear not to have been made until 1906, in
preparation for the three performances given by the Brno company that autumn.
Hrazdira’s letter to Janáček of 11 July 1906 (see APPENDIX II) mentions
relatively few changes compared with the number of cuts that were eventually made
by that September (listed in full in APPENDIX IV). He suggests making cuts to the two
Act 1 ensembles, ‘A vy, muzikanti’ and ‘Každý párek’, without giving details (‘I
would copy out those passages and send them to you for you to inspect’), and two
7 CHAPTER 1, fn. 48.
8 Ibid.
9 III/x/32–3; see vol. II/3, p. 736, footnote.
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