Everything strives towards the light

For many, Jenůfa seems to be the only positive person in the dark plot. What is she for you? A heroine?
ASMIK GRIGORIAN: That's hard to say! For me, to a large extent, she is simply a part of the village. And there, as in every community, there are people with very different qualities. Now what I particularly appreciate and admire about this opera is the fact that it reminds us that there are not simply good and bad people. They are all good and bad at the same time - and they are all very human. Jenůfa is one of them, I don't want to exclude her. She is a part of society.

Nevertheless, she shows herself better in the plot than the others, whose dark sides are more obvious.
ASMIK GRIGORIAN: She too will have her dark side. For she too is a human being, and all human beings carry both within them. Even with the sexton's wife, I see it that way. Basically, I don't use to analyse or judge the characters in that direction. Jenůfa is what she is. She has a life and deals with that life. I don't divide her into: these are the good guys, these are the bad guys.

Immensely touching is the beauty of the music, which shines through all the cruelties of the plot.
ASMIK GRIGORIAN: I love this contrast very much! In the beauty of the music it shows for me that everything in life strives towards the light - that is something I believe in. Even the darkest things, the things furthest away from the light, want to reach the light. That is also what music tells us, that is its secret and its beauty!