Juha (Madetoja)

Juha, Op. 74, is an verismo opera in three acts (or six tableaux) by the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, who wrote the piece from 1931–34. The libretto, a collaboration between Madetoja and the Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, is based on Juhani Aho's novel by the same name. The story takes place around 1880 in northern Finland, and features as its central conflict a love triangle between the farmer Juha, his young wife Marja, and a Karelian merchant, Shemeikka. Disillusioned with rural life and seduced by promises of material comfort and romance, Marja runs away with Shemeikka; Juha, who maintains his wife has been abducted, eventually discovers her betrayal and kills himself.

Juha
Opera by Leevi Madetoja
The composer, c. 1920s
Librettist	Leevi Madetoja & Aino Ackté
Language	Finnish
Based on	Juha by Juhani Aho
Premiere	17 February 1925 Finnish National Opera, Helsinki

On 17 February 1935, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the work at the Finnish National Opera under the baton of Armas Järnefelt. Although a success at its premiere, Juha failed to match the popularity of Madetoja's first opera, The Ostrobothnians; enthusiasm quickly faded and the inaugural production fizzled in February 1938, for a total of just 13 performances. Despite two mini-revivals in Madetoja's lifetime, he considered it the greatest disappointment of his career. Today, the opera is rarely performed and has been supplanted in the operatic repertoire by Aarre Merikanto's modernist 1922 version (first performed in 1963), which is based upon the same libretto.

History

For Madetoja, the 1930s brought hardship and disappointment. During this time, he was at work on two new major projects: a second opera, Juha, and a fourth symphony, each to be his final labor in their respective genres. The former, with a libretto by the famous Finnish soprano, Aino Ackté (adapted from the 1911 novel by writer Juhani Aho),[1] had fallen to Madetoja after a series of events: first, Sibelius—ever the believer in "absolute music"—had refused the project in 1914;[2][n 1] and, second, in 1922, the Finnish National Opera had rejected a first attempt by Aarre Merikanto as "too Modernist" and "too demanding on the orchestra", leading the composer to withdraw the score.[4][n 2] Two failures in, Ackté thus turned to Madetoja, the successful The Ostrobothnians of whom was firmly ensconced in the repertoire, to produce a safer, more palatable version of the opera.[4]

The death of Madetoja's mother, Anna, on 26 March 1934, interrupted his work on the opera; the loss so devastated Madetoja that he fell ill and could not travel to Oulu for the funeral.[6][7][n 3] Madetoja completed work on the opera by the end of 1934 and it premiered to considerable fanfare at the Finnish National Opera on 17 February 1935, the composer's forty-eighth birthday. The critics hailed it as a "brilliant success", an "undisputed masterpiece of Madetoja and Finnish opera literature".[6] Nevertheless, the "euphoria" of the initial performance eventually wore off and, to the composer's disappointment, Juha did not equal the popularity of The Ostrobothnians. Indeed, today Juha is most associated with Merikanto, whose modernist Juha (first performed in the 1960s) is the more enduringly popular of the two; having been displaced by Merikanto's, Madetoja's Juha is rarely performed.[6][4]

Roles

The score calls for 3 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, and orchestra.

Role	Character description	Voice type	Premiere cast (17 February 1935)
Juha	Backwoods Finnish farmer, husband of Marja	Baritone	Toivo Louko
Marja	Juha's young wife	Soprano	Irja Aholainen
Shemeikka	Proposperous Karelian peddler	Tenor	Alfons Alm
Mother-in-law (Anoppi)	Juha's mother	Alto	Lahja Linko
Kaisa	Hired girl on Juha's farm	Soprano	Karin Ehder
The Vicar (Rovasti)	Parish cleryman	Bass	Bruno Jorma
Anja	Shemeikka's former summer sweetheart	Soprano	Mary Hannikainen
First maiden	Additional former summer fling of Shemeikka	Soprano	Airi Osa
Second maiden	Additional former summer fling of Shemeikka	Alto	Martta Seppälä
First man	A friend in Shemeikka's entourage	Tenor	Emil Mantila
Second man	A friend in Shemeikka's entourage	Bass	Erkki Eklund
Chorus

Notes

1. According to Tawaststjerna, Ackté and Aho had first offered the libretto to Sibelius in November 1912, as Ackté had "felt confident that he [Sibelius] would produce something that was both powerful and refined".[3] Interested but noncommittal, Sibelius promised a firm answer within two years. To Ackté's disappointment, Sibelius declined the project in October 1914, finding its "rural verismo uncongenial"[3] and wishing to focus on his Fifth Symphony.[2]
2. According to Korhonen, while the 1920s featured the rise of Modernism in Finnish music, the national Romanticism was "still alive and well. Sibelius, Melartin, and Madetoja were at the height of their creative powers, and they were admired by the public at large". As such, many Modernist compositions were criticized by critics and a "hostile ... suspicious" public. Many others, were not even performed, "hidden in desk drawers".[5] Merikanto, an emerging modernist composer, likely received the Juha libretto from Ackté around 1920 and, after a "high state of inspiration", completed his score in the winter of 1921. After making revisions to the score in January 1922, Merikanto submitted the work to the board of the Finnish National Opera in the spring. Their rebuke stung Merikanto, and his Juha remained unperformed until 1963 in Lahti, five years after his death.[4]
3. In 1939, Madetoja published his Second Symphony (1918) using the inheritance money from his mother's death to cover the printing costs; as a tribute, he retroactively dedicated the work to her.[6][7]

References

1. Pulliainen (2000a), p. 5
2. Tawaststjerna (1997), p. 2
3. Tawaststjerna (1986), p. 236
4. Korhonen (2007), p. 70
5. Korhonen (2007), p. 63
6. Pulliainen (2001), p. 4
7. Salmenhaara (1987), p. 279

Sources

• Pulliainen, Riitta (2000a). Madetoja Orchestral Works 1: I Have Fought My Battle (booklet). Arvo Volmer & Oulu Symphony Orchestra. Tampere, Finland: Alba. p. 4–6. ABCD 132.
• Pulliainen, Riitta (2001). Madetoja Orchestral Works 4: Laurel Wreaths (booklet). Arvo Volmer & Oulu Symphony Orchestra. Tampere, Finland: Alba. p. 4–8. ABCD 162.
• Tawaststjerna, Erik (1986). Sibelius: Volume 2, 1904–1914. (Robert Layton, English translation). London: Faber and Faber.
• Tawaststjerna, Erik (1997). Sibelius: Volume 3, 1914–1957. (Robert Layton, English translation). London: Faber and Faber.
• Korhonen, Kimmo (2007). Inventing Finnish Music: Contemporary Composers from Medieval to Modern. Finnish Music Information Center (FIMIC). ISBN 978-952-5076-61-5.
• Salmenhaara, Erkki (1987). Leevi Madetoja (in Finnish). Helsinki: Tammi. ISBN 951-30-6725-4.