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direct his attentions more towards aspects of the production itself. Indeed, it was as he
gained in self-confidence as a result of this wider acceptance of his work that he
seems to have felt able to address questions of staging and production, and he no
doubt also developed a greater awareness and feel for such matters away from the
provincial limitations of his adopted home town.
On 12 May 1916, a fortnight before the opera’s Prague première, Janáček
wrote from rehearsals in Prague to his wife Zdenka, at home in Brno: ‘The clatter of
the mill [i.e. the xylophone] will be on stage — [coming] from the mill.’ 3 In the
immediate wake of the Prague production’s triumph, an emboldened Janáček took it
upon himself to address what he perceived as shortcomings in the staging itself. After
consulting the Moravian painter Alois Kalvoda (1875–1934), Janáček wrote on 3 June
1916 to the National Theatre’s administrative director, Gustav Schmoranz, requesting
‘a stylistically faithful, true stage design’ for Act 1. After criticising the stone bridge
as ‘downright unthinkable’ (i.e. unthinkable for rural Slovácko, where Jenůfa is set)
he turned his attention to the mill:
3 JODA, JP99.
4 ‘horní vody’.
Also the mill, the view of it and into it with all the artificial plumbing of the overshot
mechanism 4 — this in no way resembles the truth with its [i.e. the Prague
production’s] simple, bare, gigantic wheel stuck on the side of a cottage. Perhaps Mr
Kalvoda would be ready [to sketch a mill from life] by the autumn. 5
5 JA vii, 31. Schmoranz’s response, as noted down by him on Janáček’s letter, was dismissive: ‘The
devil take this “mistr” Kalvoda from us. An overshot mill! How is that possible on stage? Where
would the water go?’, ibid.
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