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On the significance of Jenůfa
The work which is played on our stage today has an unusual significance not only for
theatre music in general but specifically for Moravian music. For the former in its use
of a prose text and the principles on which it was composed, for the latter because it is
the first work in this field which consciously attempts to be Moravian. — Prose was
first used in opera by the French composer Alfred Bruneau in 1897. Karel Stecker
writes of this in his history; ‘His operas are becoming key works in history, being the
first, and certainly interesting, experiments in operatic composition to a prose text.‘
One must now say the same of the work of Janáček, who was the first to do
this among Czech composers, not at all after the example of the French, but on his
own initiative, drawn to this direction by the principle of truth in recorded speech
melody. The French composers anticipated him only in performance, since in 1897
the score of Jenůfa already existed in fair copy.
The principle on which Jenůfa was written is the following: Janáček
recognized that the truest expression of the soul lies in melodic motifs of speech.
Thus instead of the usual arias he used these [speech] melodies. In so doing he
achieved a truthful expression in places where this is surely one of the most important
things.
Driven by the attempt at truthful expression, not just in mood but also in
situation, he has employed a realistic expression of the locality, especially in the
choruses. In characterization he has deviated from the usual leitmotifs; his orchestra
characterizes the mood of the whole scene.
The speech motifs and the appropriately used style of folk music have stamped
his work with the nation’s spiritual seal.
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Translation: John Tyrrell, JODA, JP28