Rysanek's demented Kostelnicka with Benáckova's heavenly Jenufa in a thrilling scene of Jenufa

Leonie Rysanek, Gabriela Benáckova and Ben Heppner, all amazing in their respective roles, perform in this intensely thrilling scene of the Act 2 of Leos Janácek's opera "Jenufa", under the excellent baton of Conlon.
This is a really unforgettable rendition of this opera, which only shows all its dramatic power and impressive music with the best performers and, particularly, the right way of conducting this lush and tense score.

[@evgeny9965]

Watching Rysanek during the final bars of the music was the most riveting and terrorfying acting I have ever seen. It is true you can experience things in music you will never experience in life. Catharsis in its truest incarnation.

[@Classicvideofan]

I was there ... This final scene is certainly the most thrilling overwhelming moment I ever experienced during many years of attending performances around the world ... especially following the divine Leonie everywhere I could ... it was physically riveting me on my seat and I remember I was so overwhelmed by the dement final moments that I was unable to move during the intermission ... the voice of Leonie was SO huge !!! so IMPACTING i was emotionally and physically destroyed as never before or after in any performance I attended (which means hundreds and hundreds with the best singers around...) ... heart beating so fast short breath .... my mind was literally blown out ... this was a surreal experience ... I pray that someone could put out the in house video recording at some point ... since her stage presence was also indeed hallucinatory ... probably the greatest operatic experience of my entire life of opera fan ... Listening to Leonie even now brings me too much sorrow ... I knew her very well personally ... she was an wonderful human being equally as a immense artist and opera singer ... she was giving her heart and soul to the audience because she LOVED the people ... what we experienced in her presence was love either on stage or in private ... Love expressed with phenomenal means and total dedication to her art ... it looks to me like a very mild and inappropriate expression to say that I miss her enormously ...

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

This was a pleasure to read. Your mind wasn't just blown. It was blown out!!

[@jtdavis6937]

Her debut in the role was in Australia in one of the most electrifying performances there has ever been in opera. Leone Köppel-Winter was Jenufa and Stuart Challender was conducting. Admittedly, there was nothing subtle about Challender’s conducting, and sometimes I hated that, but, in this instance, the Fantasia-like visio-sonic synthesis, with pronunciation of the bells in something like slightly elevated or glorified common time and Rysanak’s astounding vocal abilities sounding out above it, actually worked. The cliché of ‘being on the edge of one’s seat’ barely described it, and I was listening to it at home on the radio!

[@MarioHernandez-qr4vx]

Divina Great Rysanek!!!!

[@derekdzinich8690]

That “slobodnaaaaaaaaaaa” at 4:20 is so haunting

[@w.urlitzer1869]

I also was there at the premiere in 1992 (The Met). I knew the work well from the Brussels production. This was superlative. Nothing ever made that much of an emotional impact on me.

[@thomasdahlen8533]

Rysanek was perfect in tis role.Let me remind you all of the production of Jenufa at The Royal Opera in Stockholm in the 1971 / 72 Göts Friedrich prod.Elisabeth Söderström är Jenufa and Kerstin Meyer är Kostelnicka.Söderström recorded the part för Decca.

[@jaroslavsojka8266]

Extremely beautiful but at the same time extremely sad, especially when Ms Beňačková starts to sing: "Tož on mi umřel...."

[@hmhparis1904]

Where and when has this been recorded?

[@CarlosGomes-wi2ti]

Homoclassicus, se você postasse a ária da Kolstelnicka seria ótimo. O trecho de ópera mais emocionante que já vi ao vivo!

[@Homoclassicus]

Sim, vou postar! Com Rysanek é de arrepiar de cima abaixo!

[@CarlosGomes-wi2ti]

Homoclassicus Ela é sempre fantástica. Principalmente em papéis como esse. Eu assisti com a Eliane Coelho e foi pra botar o nome entre as maiores intérpretes desse papel.