At first glance, the situations and conflicts found in Jenufa are common material in a lot of operas in the repertoire. However, the individual profile of each dramatic moment and the way in which these moments thread into each other makes this a much more powerful and complex drama than it first seems.
Leoš Janácek (Moravia, 1854-1928) worked on Jenufa for 10 years, during which time his daughter died and he became ill. With libretto by Janácek himself, based on Gabriela Preissova's drama The Stepdaughter, the opera was first performed on the 21st of January 1904 and did not have much attention paid to it. Jenufa became famous in 1918 after a version of the libretto was translated into German and performed by the Vienna State Opera.
Janácek's style is far too personal to be considered as a trend. As it is a sturdy and well defined rural drama with naturalistic language, there are a lot of people who believe that it is similar to certain works from the Italian veristic movement, despite the fact that it also contains elements from the late Romantic period. When it came to the music, Janácek developed a very original, hard and dramatic style that was well ahead of its time. It is not atonal per-se, but it does show an interesting polytonality and complex harmonies that had a novel and avant-garde effect at the time.

Jenufa is set in the Moravian countryside at the end of the 19th century and its story seems to be a page straight out of a sensationalist newspaper. Jenufa is a peasant girl with a drunken boyfriend (Steva). She hopes that he will give her a son and that he will not be called up by the military, so that she can marry him and avoid the disgrace of being a single mother. He is not recruited by the military but he is forbidden from seeing Jenufa, as her stepmother (Kostelnicka) says that he has to go a year without drinking before she will allow them to be together. Laca, Steva's stepbrother is in love with Jenufa and wounds her in the face to leave her with a mark so that Steva will back off. This all happens within a context of inbreeding and incest, as Jenufa, Steva and Laca all have the same grandmother.
Jenufa lives in Kostelnicka's cottage whilst she is pregnant and gives birth to a baby. They tell Steva so that he can recognise his son and get married to Jenufa, but he is engaged by this time to the mayor's daughter. Kostelnicka tells Laca that the baby has died and that he can get married to his old love, before giving Jenufa a sleeping pill and drowning the baby in the freezing river. In the middle of her pain and helplessness, Jenufa agrees to marry Laca. The furious villagers find the baby's frozen body whilst the wedding is being celebrated and they want to lynch Jenufa. Kostelnicka owns up to the crime and gives herself up to the mob. There is no wedding, only grief and misery. Now that they are alone, Jenufa and Laca talk about the possibility of a new life together.