Jenůfa is an opera by Leoš Janáček and my thesis project at NYU, that made me long for making a realized production of a paper project more than any other. The design is filtered through my point of view as someone who latched onto the moments in music that (in my opinion) resonated with anyone with Slavic heritage.

The main premise of the first act is an exploration of what focus does to scale when it comes to memory. I created a space that is a collective women’s evocation of a town square with a water mill. Very stern, paternal, dream-like, machinery with it’s own set of rules, and light boxes flaring up like synapses.

The second act is in the now, inside the house of Kostelnička, who hides Jenůfa on the top floor where no one can see her and resides in her religious mania in an attempt to wash her hands off of the sin she is about to commit.

In the third act, after the deed is done – the villagers are coming in to see the weeping bride, the wedding is on, all is well. Until the army of people bursts through the walls of the house to remind Kostelnička of what she’s done.