Jenufa
From the New Theatre,
Cardiff. Conductor Daniel
Harding makes his British operatic debut tonight with the Chorus and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Janacek's Jenufa is a passionate story of jealousy, human misfortune and the redeeming power of love. At the heart of the opera is a child's short life and early death. Jenufa's baby is illegitimate, born to her in secret in her stepmother's house. In her attempt to give Jenufa a chance of marriage, her stepmother tries to persuade the father to marry Jenufa; but when she fails, she kills Jenufa's baby. In his setting of Gabriela
Preissova's play, Janacek evokes the claustrophobic atmosphere of peasant life in 19th-century Moravia.
Chorus and Orchestra of Welsh National
Opera, conductor Daniel Harding Act
8.00 Jenufa and Its Origins
Tom Rosenthal explores Preissova's play Her Stepdaughter, on which Jenufa is based.
8.20 Act 2
9.10 Book of the Month
How was Hitler possible? That is the central question faced by Ian Kershaw in his new biography, in which he draws on newly available speeches and writings and Goebbels's diary to investigate how Hitler was able to extend power until it was absolute.
Christopher Clark discusses Kershaw's conclusions in Hitler: 1889-1936.
9.30 Act 3