Sung in German. World premiere recording, recorded in 1949. This recording, which originated when a radio listener recorded the broadcast (“air check”), unfortunately contains a few smaller and some larger gaps. This is due to the small tape-recorder spools that were at the disposal of this listener back in 1949. We have deliberately made these gaps very audible so as to spare the CD listener the feeling that something is perhaps wrong with his CD player. Incidentally, there are larger gaps only in the 5th scene of Act 2 (4 1/2 measures) and the 3rd scene of Act 3 (12 measures). The NWDR Cologne, which broadcast the performance of the Städtische Bühnen Köln, apparently did not archive the recording, so the tape of the unnamed radio listener remains the sole known audio document of this “Jenufa” production. The closing duet (third act, scene 12, duet Jenufa /Laca) also did not make it onto the tape recording, probably because of the inadequate spools, and is thus no longer extant in the original. Fortunately, Trude Eipperle sang the title role in another Jenufa recording in 1953, this time at the Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt, and we have “borrowed” the closing
duet from the Frankfurt recording. The listener can thus hear Trude Eipperle throughout the recording as Jenufa. Her partner in this recording was Sebastian Feiersinger as Laca. The sound quality of the present recording is the result of many hours of work and the use of state-of-the-art studio technology.
