Janáček’s Jenůfa in Czech and English

This week I added a new composer to LibrettoArchive: Leoš Janáček, starting with one of his most important operas, Jenůfa.

This turned into a much larger project than I first expected. Over several days I worked through the Czech libretto line by line, compared different sources, checked the text against score-based versions, listened to the music, restored missing passages and stage directions, corrected transcription errors, and prepared a new English translation.

The result is a new Czech–English side-by-side edition of Jenůfa, now available on LibrettoArchive: https://www.librettoarchive.com/Jenůfa_libretto_Czech_English

A new English translation

The English text in this edition is a new translation prepared specifically for LibrettoArchive and DM’s Opera Series.

My goal was to keep the English clear and natural while staying close enough to the Czech that the opera can be followed line by line while listening.

That is especially important with Janáček. His vocal writing is closely connected to the rhythm of spoken Czech, and the libretto contains older, regional and Moravian forms that do not always translate neatly into English.

I tried not to smooth everything into generic modern language. Where the original has its own character, I wanted some of that character to remain visible.

Checking and rebuilding the Czech text

The Czech text itself needed a surprising amount of work.

I compared several libretto and score sources and found many small differences between them: missing lines, omitted stage directions, punctuation differences, OCR mistakes, different spellings, and musical repetitions that appear in score-based sources but disappear from prose versions of the libretto.

Some corrections were very small — a comma, a question mark, one word.

Others involved restoring complete passages, checking where they belong in the scene, and then translating them again in context.

I also tried to preserve genuine Czech and Moravian forms rather than automatically “correcting” them into modern standard Czech.

This was probably the most time-consuming part of the project. Checking so much text is difficult, especially when you are also listening to the music, comparing sources, checking repetitions, and trying to keep both languages aligned.

I do not want to claim that this edition is perfect or definitive. With a work this large, small errors can still remain. If anyone notices something that should be corrected, I will be very glad to check it and update the edition.

That is one of the advantages of LibrettoArchive: the text does not have to remain frozen forever.

Czech and English side by side

The new edition places the original Czech directly beside the English translation.

That makes it easier to follow the opera while listening, compare the translation with Janáček’s original text, study a role, or simply understand what is happening without constantly switching between separate sources.

For Jenůfa, I think this format is especially useful because so much of the character of the opera comes from the language itself.

Jenůfa is now available on Amazon

The paperback edition is also now published on Amazon:

Jenůfa: Side-by-Side Czech–English Opera Libretto

It contains the same Czech–English text available on LibrettoArchive, formatted as part of DM’s Opera Series. I also prepared a PDF preview of the printed edition, so you can see the layout and read a sample before buying the book.

This book joins the growing Side-by-Side Libretto Translations series, which now includes operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Bizet, Gounod, Tchaikovsky, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Cherubini and others.

A new composer on LibrettoArchive

With this release, Leoš Janáček now has his own composer page on LibrettoArchive.
https://www.librettoarchive.com/Leoš_Janáček

I have wanted to expand the archive further into Czech opera, and Jenůfa felt like the right place to begin. So this week brought quite a lot to LibrettoArchive: a new composer, a new opera, a carefully reviewed Czech libretto, a new English translation, a Czech–English side-by-side edition, a PDF preview, and a new paperback on Amazon.

It took many days of checking, listening, correcting and translating, and I am sure I will continue improving it whenever I find a better source or notice something that can be fixed. If you find an error, please let me know. I would much rather correct it than pretend the work is finished forever.