Rattle conducts Janáček: Jenůfa

Simon Rattle conducts Damiano Michieletto’s unflinching 2021 staging of Jenůfa at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Janáček’s breakthrough opera, rooted in the folk traditions of his native Moravia, unfolds in music of visceral immediacy, tracing a story in which the darkest tragedy is ultimately transformed through hope and forgiveness. Filmed during lockdown in an empty theatre, the staging takes on added intensity, with Evelyn Herlitzius’s formidable Kostelnička at its centre, alongside Camilla Nylund’s moving Jenůfa and Stuart Skelton’s deeply felt Laca, while Rattle shapes a performance of sweep and power to match the director’s concentrated dramatic vision.