Jenůfa

The plot depends on a tangled set of village relationships. Before the opera begins, the mill-owner Grandmother Buryja had two sons. The elder married the widow of a man named Klemeň, became stepfather to her son Laca, and had a son of his own with her, Števa. The younger married twice, and had a daughter, Jenůfa, with his first wife. When the opera opens, Grandmother Buryja's sons and their wives have died, except for the Kostelnička (the sacristan or sextoness of the village church), the younger son's second wife and Jenůfa's stepmother. Custom dictates that Števa alone, as the elder son's only child, will inherit the mill, leaving his half-brother Laca and cousin Jenůfa to earn their livings. Jenůfa, Laca, and Grandmother Buryja wait for Števa to return home. Jenůfa, in love with Števa and secretly pregnant with his child, worries that he may have been drafted into the army. Laca, in love with Jenůfa, expresses bitterness against his half-brother's favored position at home. As he complains he plays with a knife and, finding it blunt, gives it to the mill foreman to be sharpened. The foreman informs the family that Števa has not been drafted, to Jenůfa's relief and Laca's increased frustration. The others leave, and Jenůfa waits to greet Števa. He appears with a group of soldiers, drunk and boasting of his prowess with the girls. He calls for music and drags the miserable Jenůfa into dancing with him. The Kostelnička steps into this rowdy scene, silences the musicians and, …

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