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Other extensive cuts made at this stage include the 31 bars removed from the
opening scene of Act 2 between Jenůfa and the Kostelnička (II/i/167–94) and a
notable abridgement of the orchestral introduction to Act 3 (102 bars in 1904,
shortened to 77 in 1908).
Many of the longer cuts in particular went hand-in-hand with significant textural
alterations to the surrounding passages that remained (see below, §3.3.2), although
Janáček nevertheless often preserved the musical and expressive essence of the original
material even where it was drastically pruned, unwilling to forego entirely the residual
lyricism of the original inspiration. 21 There are also a few passages that, although brief,
were relatively self-contained and that were excised at this stage of the revision process.
Of these, one of the more striking is a short, impassioned aside from the Kostelnička in
Act 2 Scene 8, just after she has offered to bless Jenůfa and Laca (Ex. 3.11 below):
‘Ach, ona neví, neví’ [Ah, she doesn’t realise how hard it’s been for me to bring this all
about], after which she sinks into the chair. 22 This sudden, musically arresting outburst
is (arguably) an expressive consequence of her preceding ‘Půjde, za tebe, půjde, Laco,
půjde!’ [Of course she’ll go with you, Laca] (II/viii/82, marked zimničě, i.e. feverishly)
and ‘Ona včil už ztracený rozum našla!’ [Now she has come to her senses again]
(II/viii/93, marked rozčileně, i.e. wildly or excitedly). However, from a purely dramatic
point of view (and, indeed, from a musico-dramatic one) this short passage seems weak.
As a musically self-contained aside, it is in one sense a miniature counterpart to the
Kostelnička’s Act 1 ‘Aji on byl zlatohřivý’. And whilst it hardly holds up the action to
the same extent, it does threaten to steal thunder, however fleetingly, from the
Kostelnička’s later chilling descent into the mental abyss (Act 2, fig. 120).
21 A point made by Tyrrell in connection with the surviving ‘torso’ of ‘Chci, Jenůfa’, Tyrrell 1968, 74.
22 As well she might, given the demands of Janáček’s specified metronome mark: see Ex. 3.11.
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