Jakub Hrůša has earned universal acclaim for Janáček’s Jenufa at Royal Opera House Covent Garden. The performance is his first at ROH since he was announced as its next Music Director, a role he assumes at the start of the 2025/26 season.
The Times’ Richard Morrison praises Hrůša’s “peerless conducting” in his 5 star review. He continue, “it will be unsurprising to anyone who has heard him conducting Czech music in concert. Even so, it’s thrilling. I often found myself concentrating more on the sounds coming from the pit than the drama on stage, so vividly was the orchestration coloured, so taut and precise the playing.
“Mostly Hrůša was careful not to overwhelm the voices. But occasionally — and with the impact of a boxer landing a sledgehammer upper-cut — some piercingly raw trumpet call or thumping brass chord would be unleashed. Or the strings would thrust out some baleful refrain as if underscoring the anger in the singers’ words. Elsewhere, however, Hrůša conjured up a ravishing romanticism (notably with lustrous solo violin work from Vasko Vassilev), reminding us that Jenufa was mostly written in the same year that Puccini wrote Madama Butterfly.”
In his 5 star review for Music OHM, Keith McDonnell notes that Hrůša “conducts a sublime performance of Janáček’s masterpiece with a superb cast” that “crackled with energy and tension.”
He continues, “Hrůša’s affinity for Janáček’s idiom was evident in his meticulous pacing and ability to bring clarity to the score’s detailed layers. Under his baton, the orchestra played with both razor-sharp precision and a luminous warmth that underscored the work’s ever-shifting emotional contrasts. The orchestral introductions to each act were especially gripping, with Hrůša’s interpretation revealing hidden depths within Janáček’s masterful orchestration. His tenure as music director promises a future of musical riches for the company.”
The Telegraph’s Nicholas Kenyon writes, “His way with the score is distinctively supple, the sounds rounded and shaped, without any of hard edges some conductors impose here. …the cumulative tension paid dividends.”
“High expectations were unequivocally met,” writes Barry Millington in The Evening Standard. “It’s perhaps no surprise that Hrůša’s conducting of his compatriot’s music exudes not only an idiomatic richness in the strings but also a pungency in the winds (notably oboe and cor anglais here) and a thrilling vibrancy in the brass.
“What could not have been taken for granted was the glorious amplitude of the soundscape he conjured: not a matter of sheer volume, but the kind of live experience a high-end quadraphonic surround sound system aims to replicate.”
David Nice in The Arts Desk says, “Hrůša makes everything work; you hear more than you could possibly hope from any other conductor.”
The Claus Guth production of Jenufa runs at Royal Opera House Covent Garden through 1 February.