Jenůfa at Hayesfield

Bath Opera have found a new venue; the Roper Theatre at Hayesfield School, which I visited a couple of years ago (when it was brand new) to see my son’s final-year primary school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We were in the front row, which obscured part of the left of the stage, though as the evening went on we got used to this.

I’ve seen this opera once before (in fact it’s the only one by Janáček that I’ve ever been to), when WNO brought it to Bristol, and realising a bit too late that it really wasn’t the opera to see if you’re pregnant.

The principals were for the most part familiar voices to me, apart from Števa, and acted and sang convincingly. The orchestra coped admirably with the demanding music – Janáček works his strings in particular extremely hard. I noticed how each instrument got its moment of glory (the violas were the ones most in my line of view). The staging made very effective use of a gauze curtain to show ‘offstage’ action. (No video backgrounds this time)

It was a chance to support a friend in the chorus. Now where do they find so many men from?! Contrary to the usual way of things, they outnumbered the women.

As usual there was a raffle, and I got really lucky, as I found after the performance that each of the two tickets I’d bought had got attached to a nice bottle of wine. Indeed we may nearly have turned a profit on the evening as a result!

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