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eviews or correspondence, its omission (reversed in recent years following its
inclusion in UE 1969 and UE 1996 / UE 2000) actually strengthens the opera’s
Naturalistic credentials. 12
Two other important 1906 cuts were those made to the ensembles mentioned
in Hrazdira’s letter. ‘A vy, muzikanti’ was reduced from 45 to 29 bars (cuts 3–6 in
APPENDIX IV; Janáček would take this even further in his 1907/8 revisions: see TABLE
3.2 below). Even more significant, however, was the removal of the central part of
‘Každý párek’, reducing it from 67 to 53 bars (cut no. 7). This was the ensemble that
had caused such controversy in the wake of Josef Charvát’s review article in 1904. 13
The main criticism that had emerged in Janáček’s spat with the editorial board of
Jeviště was the multiple repetition by soloists and chorus of just one short line of
homespun wisdom from Grandmother Buryjovka: ‘Každý párek si musí svoje trápení
přestát’ [Every couple must overcome their own troubles], a repetition which all too
obviously flew in the face of the opera’s much trumpeted realism. Janáček’s defence
— that ‘Whoever hears this motif of the Grandmother […] not only sighs in spirit
12 In classic Naturalism, as epitomised in the novels of Émile Zola and notionally taken up (albeit in
modified form) by operatic Naturalism and verismo, the reader or audience is denied the privilege ‘of
identifying with the characters’ motives and feelings’: Andrew Rothwell, Introduction to Émile Zola,
Thérèse Raquin (Oxford: OUP, 1992), viii. It is just such motives that the Kostelnička’s Act 1 aria (and
her monologue in Preissová’s play) sets out at length. Taken in context, the ‘realism’ referred to in the
original Jenůfa programme note (APPENDIX I) is clearly synonymous with what would now be referred
to as Naturalism; for an outline of the definitions of and distinctions between the terms, see Chew 2003,
101–3. Although the Kostelnička’s aria is now widely performed in productions and recordings, there
are no grounds to believe that it was cut for any reason other than that Janáček himself felt it should be
removed. Nor are there any signs that Janáček ever sought to reinstate it, unlike Jenůfa’s Act 2 Scene 6
prayer ‘Zdrávas královno’ [Hail, queen] which had been cut from the second performance of the opera
(28 January 1904) because of the indisposition of the singer, Marie Kabeláčová, but was subsequently
restored.
13 See CHAPTER 1, §1.3.
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