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Janáček attempted to pursue the matter further that August, but although Kalvoda
produced for him a series of colour sketches of old mills in the Javorník–Suchov
valley, the composer’s proposals were tactfully but firmly scotched by Schmoranz. 6
Subsequently, mill-wheels continued to feature prominently in set designs, 7
and further evidence exists of Janáček’s association of the xylophone with the mill
itself. On 22 March 1924, five days after the opera’s Berlin première under Erich
Kleiber, he wrote in a letter of thanks to Kleiber:
If I may ask you for something, it is: the introduction to the first act, just a little
quicker to give it an appearance of restlessness. And place the xylophone on the stage
near the mill where its icy tone will be damped. That is all. 8
Gabriela Preissová’s still later (1941) reminiscences state that ‘[Janáček] studied the
cries of young men at their folk dancing, he went off to the mill where he listened to
and noted down the noises of the turning and rumble of the mill wheel.’ 9 Whilst
Preissová’s recollections might in other respects ‘need to be treated with caution’ on
account of their late date, 10 Act 1 of Jenůfa was indeed written against the background
of the culmination of Janáček’s transcription and collection of folk rituals, as well as
6 JA vii, 39–40; see also Vogel 1963, 370 (394 in the Eng. trans.).
7 These included the set designs by Hans Führinger for the 1918 Hofoper production in Vienna; see
illustration in Alena Němcová (ed.), Svět Janáčkových oper (Brno: Moravské Zemské museum, Nadace
Leoše Janáčka a Město Brno, 1998), 38, which also shows a more radically stylised design (still including
mill-wheel) by Friedrich Kalbfuss for a 1925 production at the Hessisches Landestheater, Darmstadt.
Führinger’s Vienna designs were subsequently adapted for the opera’s US première at the Metropolitan
Opera, New York, in December 1924 (JaWo, 17).
8 Štědroň 1955, 178.
9 JODA, JP3.
10 JODA, 43.
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