Review: The woman dies, the opera thrives
OperaThe plot of Katya Kabanova is devastatingly simple. Older husband goes away on business, telling his loyal young wife to keep her eyes off a fanciable young man. The ivevitable happens. Husband returns. Katya jumps into the river.
The difference between Janacek’s opera and so many others is that the music places us irresistibly on the transgressor’s side. Janacek loves Katya. So do we. Despite her fling, we want her to he happy, not dead.
David Alden’s production at Grange Park requires extra audience tissues.
The cast is all-British. Natalya Romaniw is overwhelming as Katya, an unconfident woman who grows with her infidelity. Boris, her love interest, is Thomas Atkins*. Susan Bullock plays the appalling mother-in-law. All sing in Czech like natives. If any other language had been required they would have pronounced it with aplomb.
I have seldom been prouder of my country’s singers, the more so as their opportunities shrink with the demolition of English and Welsh National Operas and the myopic determination of Covent Garden to depend almost entirely on imports.
Grange Park is a start-up summer festival by Wasfi Kani. Some of its musicians have worked with her for thirty years. Among a plethora of countryhouse festivals, it is the one that feels most like a family.
Katya is unmissable. There is another performance next Friday.
photo: Marc Brenner/Grange Park
* Turns out he’s from New Zealand.
It is brilliantly sung!
Janacek never fails, ever !!
Katya is one of the true, and rarely heralded, masterpieces of the 20th Cent.
The singing and playing was wonderful, the whole evening a treat for opera lovers.
We were in the audience last night. A wonderful evening: terrific singing, especially from the ladies. Natalya Romaniw has one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. But all credit too to Sarah Bullock as the dreadful Kabanicha, and to Katy Bray as a particularly coquettish Varvara.
The production showed also how much can be done with minimal scenery. Wonderfully imaginative lighting. A very special production. Too many empty seats though. A sign of the times?
“Katya” was based on “The Storm”, a 1859 play by Alexander Ostrovsky. But who’ll dare to mention a Russian these days?
Infidelity, Selfishness, and Cowardliness were the recipe for tragidy.
Bravo, yes. It is a superb production
Slipped Disc is partly correct.
Thomas Atkins is British-born but was raised and predominantly educated in New Zealand, where his parents still reside. After a music degree at Victoria University of Wellington, Thomas continued his vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama then the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at ROH Covent Garden, whwre he has appeared a number of times in addition to the Glyndebourne Festival.
Thomas is a charming fellow and excellent singer. Expect great things from him in future.
This is the first time that I have heard that Katja is married to an older man. Is this really so? Surely the difference cannot be that big as Kabanicha is not presented as an old woman (but rather as a woman in middle age).
“Older husband goes away on business, telling his loyal young wife to keep her eyes off a fanciable young man. ” Just not true. When Tichon leaves , he is direced by his mother to tell Kat;a to be faithful. Neither Tichon nor his mother has the slightest idea that she is already eyeng Boris.
The music in “K.K.” is truly gorgeous, but I love “The Makropulos Affair” even more. I was blessed to see Karita Matilla do that at the height of her powers in S.F.