Asmik Grigorian and Nina Stemme lead the Met’s first Jenůfa in a decade

Claus Guth’s staging opens November 16, with Tomáš Hanus making his Metropolitan Opera debut and conducting Janáček’s original orchestration.

Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa returns to the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, November 16, for the first time in a decade. Asmik Grigorian sings the title role for the first time at the Met, while Nina Stemme takes on the role of Jenůfa’s stepmother, the Kostelnička, for the first time with the company. Czech conductor Tomáš Hanus makes his Met debut in the six-performance run, which continues through December 4.

Grigorian sang Jenůfa when Guth’s staging premiered at London’s Covent Garden in 2021. The staging went on to win the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production and now comes to New York in association with the Royal Opera. It marks Guth’s return to the Met following his company debut with Strauss’s Salome in 2025.

Set in a Moravian village, the opera follows a young woman whose lover abandons her after she becomes pregnant. Guth’s austere staging emphasizes the routines of village life and the pressure they place on Jenůfa and her stepmother. Sean Panikkar and Ryan Capozzo make their role debuts as Laca and Števa, respectively, and Elena Zaremba sings Grandmother Buryja for the first time at the Met.

Janáček’s original orchestration

Hanus, who studied at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, will conduct the opera in the composer’s original orchestration, which a later revision displaced for much of the work’s early performance history. The cast will sing in Czech, a language the Met first used for Jenůfa in 2003. The company introduced the opera in German during the 1924–25 season and brought it back in English in 1974.