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Justice is finally served! München
Nationaltheater
07/07/2025 - & March 17, 21, 24, 27, 30, 2025
Leos Janácek: Káťa Kabanová
Corinne Winters (Káťa Kabanová), Pavel Cernoch (Boris), Violeta Urmana (Kabanicha), John Daszak (Tichon), Ena Pongrac/Emily Sierra* (Varvara), Milan Siljanov (Dikoj), James Ley (Kudrjás), Thomas Mole (Kuligin), Ekaterine Buachidze (Glasa), Elene Gvritishvili (Feklusa), Samuel Stopford (A man), Natalie Lewis (A woman)
Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Franz Obermair (chorus master), Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Marc Albrecht/Petr Popelka* (conductor)
Krzysztof Warlikowski (stage director), Malgorzata Szczesniak (sets & costumes), Felice Ross (lights), Kamil Polak (videography), Claude Bardouil (choreography), Christian Longchamp, Lukas Leipfinger (dramaturgy)
C. Winters (© Geoffroy Schied)
The son of a schoolteacher in the region of Moravia, Janácek’s obvious musical talent convinced his father to allow him to pursue a musical career. Never a conformist, he was by all accounts a gifted though perturbed student at the Brno Conservatory and later the Leipzig Conservatory. An enfant terrible, he wrote a scathing review of his teacher’s conducting at the Brno Conservatory which got him expelled (his teacher later relented, allowing his return). Later in life, another virulent review of an opera by Czech composer Karel Kovarovic gained him the latter’s everlasting enmity. When Kovarovic eventually became Director of the National Theatre in Prague, he understandably refused to premiere Jenůfa there as retribution.
The 1904 premiere of Jenůfa in Brno, Janácek’s first success, took place when the composer (b. 1854) was already middle‑aged. He’d made his living as a provincial music teacher and organist in Brno, but after Jenůfa’s debut in Prague and its ensuing international success, he embarked on a remarkable second period of productivity, during which he wrote what are now considered to be major works: Káťa Kabanová (1921); The Cunning Little Vixen (1924); The Makropulos Case (1926); From the House of the Dead (1928); Taras Bulba (1921); Sinfonietta (1926); Glagolitic Mass (1927); String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata” (1924); and String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters” (1928). It is believed that the fecund last years of his life were due to his passion for Kamila Stösslová, a young married woman almost four decades years his junior. This unfulfilled passion was channeled into abundant creativity.
Káťa Kabanová is based on the play The Storm (1859) by Russian playwright Aleksander Ostrovsky (1823‑1886). Káťa, the young wife of Tichon, is secretly in love with Boris Grigorjevic in a provincial town on the Volga. Tichon’s mother, the possessive and tyrannical Kabanicha, mistreats Káťa and relentlessly reprimands her son for being too attentive to his wife. When Tichon embarks on a business trip to Kazan, Káťa yields to the temptation of seeing Boris, with the encouragement of Varvara, Tichon’s foster‑sister. Varvara admires Káťa and is herself living a love story with schoolteacher Vána. When Tichon returns, the guilt‑ridden Káťa confesses her guilt to her husband in public, thus causing him humiliation and herself disgrace. By evening, there’s a storm and Káťa is missing. During the search for Káťa, Varvara and Vána decide to leave Moscow to start a new life. Boris finds Káťa and expresses his concern for her. He’s accepted his rich uncle’s decision to send him to Siberia. After he bids her farewell, her sanity deteriorates and she throws herself into the Volga. Tichon tries to save his drowning wife but is restrained by Kabanicha. Káťa’s body is brought to shore. A broken Tichon blames his mother for his wife’s suicide. A cold Kabanicha thanks the bystanders for their help.
As with Jenůfa (1904), Káťa Kabanová compellingly chronicles typical rural life in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both works are universal stories that address the turmoil and family tension in conservative society. Contemporaneously with the Italian verismo of Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano and Catalani, Janácek’s operas are both musically and dramatically vastly superior. In both operas, a quartet of leading roles – rather than the usual amorous duo – lend dramatic density to the action. In this work, it’s Káťa, Boris, Tichon and Kabanicha. Another contemporary parallel is found in the powerful plays of Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca (1898‑1936), particularly Bodas de sangre (1933), Yerma (1934), and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1945; written in 1936).
Like Strauss’ operatic masterworks Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909), Káťa Kabanová is extremely intense, offering any artistic director infinite opportunities. Though in three acts, its duration is relatively short, just under two hours. Without intermissions (as was the case here), the action is more compact and the drama more intense. Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski is one of the most creative and controversial opera directors. Unlike his recent dull staging of Don Carlos in Paris, Warlikowski managed to brilliantly set up the paroxysm felt by Káťa from the very start. He did so by opting for changing the mostly exterior setting of the opera into an interior one. Ten minutes prior to the beginning of the opera, several couples are seen dancing to Carlos Gardel tangos in a huge dance hall, in a scene reminiscent of Ettore Scola’s Le Bal (1983). It seemed to be a drab 1960s department store, in a small town. With a fully‑stocked store window replete with mannequins on the right, a toilet, a jukebox, a “Mineral bar” and an aquarium in the centre and microphones in the front, the lifeline of a sad small town is deeply felt. The aquarium represents the Volga, but in a contained, oppressive sense.
In front of the jukebox, Káťa is dancing to more accelerated rhythms than the sedate tango dancers. When Boris enters the place, Káťa is perturbed. She confesses to her sister‑in‑law Varvara her attraction to him. Warlikowski sees the fragile Káťa as a femme enfant, in the mold of Mélisande. When she recounts to Varvara her happy childhood and her desire to fly like a bird, Warlikowski exposes the troubled, broken woman through videos of her gasping for air inside the aquarium. This is extremely well‑conveyed by American soprano Corinne Winters, a tremendous singing actress in the lineage of Gwyneth Jones, Anja Silja and Hildegard Behrens. Winters is endowed with a unique lyric soprano, a distinct timbre and ease in the high register. Her petite figure is perfectly suited to Warlikowski’s femme enfant concept. Káťa’s paroxysm, a recurring theme in the opera, was masterfully conveyed by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester under Czech conductor Petr Popelka. Winters has been singing Káťa Kabanová quite frequently, as well as other Czech roles. I don’t speak the language so therefore cannot judge her diction, but I suspect she’s in good practice. In any case, she was highly convincing.
American mezzo Emily Sierra was a brilliant Varvara, a role that usually makes a limited impression, given the relentless intensity of the main character. Her affection for Káťa was palpable, and her more controlled rebellion well‑projected. Sierra’s light mezzo blended well with Winters’ powerful soprano.
Czech tenor Pavel Cernoch was a terrific Boris, almost an homme enfant to match with Káťa’s fragile character. An orphaned city boy sent to his rich oppressive uncle in a small, godforsaken town, he’s utterly bored and acts the blasé, rebellious city boy cogently. Though opposites often attract, here it’s “outsiders” that attract. Cernoch’s portrayal of Boris goes beyond “outsider,” as he’s also a loser and a weakling. Vocally, Cernoch’s sweet, virile lyric tenor contrasted with Daszak’s smaller tenor, reflecting emasculated Tichon’s low testosterone level.
In an ensuing scene, we witness Káťa clinging to her husband Tichon, perfectly portrayed by British tenor John Daszak. This Tichon is an amiable and kind teddy bear, who loves his wife as much as he is able to, having been psychologically castrated by his domineering mother, Kabanicha, sung by the peerless Lithuanian mezzo Violeta Urmana. In addition to possessing a huge vocal range enabling her to sing both demanding mezzo and soprano roles, Urmana is truly charismatic and burns the stage from her first appearance. Think Judith Anderson in Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), as Miss Danvers. Her posture and arrogant demeanour alone attested to her overbearing and detestable character even more than her sensible suits and double pearl necklace.
When Káťa meets Boris, it’s not in the garden (as written in the libretto), but at the town’s “mineral bar.” The Volga, so central to the story and the mood, is vividly present through the aquarium. At the end of the amorous assignation, an undressed Káťa falls on the floor, witnessed by the townsfolk. Though not in the libretto, it conveys Káťa’s guilt. Like a thief, she escapes to get dressed amid the store’s mannequins, snatching a dress and a purse from one of them. This striking image was effective in conveying Káťa’s fall from grace. After their tryst, Boris is seen wearing a white mask among the townsfolk, signifying his search for anonymity among the crowd.
The opera’s powerful finale was rendered even more compelling by the brilliant direction. The final meeting between Káťa and Boris was absolutely heartbreaking. After he’s gone, Káťa continues to talk to a camera, with her image then appearing in the aquarium, signifying her drowning. The townsfolk are assembled on chairs evocative of church pews. A central figure appears to be a pastor or a priest. Warlikowski vindicates the dead Káťa in a scene reminiscent of the ending of Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (1988), when the Paris Opera public reacts with hostility to the Marquise de Merteuil. It’s not only her son that leaves her in disgust at both her cruelty and his own weakness, but the townsfolk too shun the toxic matriarch. Justice is finally served!
Ossama el Naggar
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