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Janáček's Jenůfa

Streaming the First Century

Session 1: Janáček's JENŮFA, 1980

(run time 3 hours and 1 minute)
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San Francisco Opera’s first production of Janáček's Jenůfa, in the original Czech features two legendary interpreters—Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström and Bosnian diva Sena Jurinac—in an unforgettable performance.

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE

Beyond Doubt One of Opera's Great Experiences
By David Shengold
(read time ~ 8 minutes)

As one who started attending SFO the following season, hearing this live Jenůfa arouses not just pleasure but nostalgia and a kind of envy. Literally on my first day in San Francisco (June 28, 1981) I not only took in my first Gay Day parade but stood through a Don Giovanni matinée with Carol Vaness (Anna) and Giuseppe Taddei (Leporello): equally mind-blowing events to a brand-new East Coast college grad. In the close community of standees I grew to know that year, "the Söderström and Jurinac Jenůfa" was already the stuff of you-should-have-heard-it legend. Wonderful now to hear why, in experiencing this broadcast fourth of a run of six performances.

Cast

Elisabeth Söderström

Jenůfa

Elisabeth Söderström

Sena Jurinac

Kostelnička Buryjovka

Sena Jurinac

William Lewis

Števa Buryja

William Lewis

Allen Cathcart

Laca Klemen

Allen Cathcart

Elisabeth Söderström and Sena Jurinac 1980 newspaper clipping

Broadcast Intermission Interview

Synopsis -- Cast Page -- Program Articles

 

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