In review: from around the world: Houston.(North America)(Jenufa)(Opera Review)

David Alden intended his new Houston Grand Opera production of Janacek's Jenufa to be timeless, but the factory setting of its Act I, and the costumes throughout, suggested a coldly industrial 1930s. Alden's direction of Jenufa (seen January 25) communicated a frosty disengagement and alienation that the immediacy and passion of Janacek's music frequently belied. In Charles Edwards's set designs, the stage was steeply raked and mostly hare, and even interiors were largely devoid of furniture, except for a few lightweight chairs that the characters hefted around. As a result, the singers spent a lot of time on the ground or hugging the walls, and more often than not they interacted with one another from opposite sides of the stage without actually looking at each other. Fortunately, this approach was more effective for Jenufa than for the other works that Alden has staged recently for Houston, including Ariodante (2002), Macbeth (1997) and Kata Kabanova (2000). As an unexpected analogy for the revelation and redemption of the final act, the walls were pulled open and the arrow-shaped ceiling raised, underlining the ray of hope with which the work ends. It was nice to see the direction here supporting, rather than negating, the opera's text and music--especially when the brilliant score was as luxuriously played as it was by Dennis Russell Davies and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra.

Each character was searingly realized by Alden, his production team and his talented cast. ...