Scottish Opera’s touring production of Janacek’s opera Katya Kabanova is now on the road.
It opened at the weekend, and over thee next months will receive 18 further performances throughout Scotland, from Stornoway to Easterhouse, with yet more next year.
It is an impressive production that will be a magnet to opera buffs, but, as was made clear to me at the weekend, many people do not know the opera, its composer, or the style of the music. (Big lesson here: don’t patronise your audience and don’t assume anything.) So let’s do a single useful thing here. I heard the second, and blistering, performance on Saturday, with soprano Joanne Boag as Katya, the tragic adulteress drawn irresistibly to a fateful liaison with Boris, and pilloried by her oppressive mother-in-law, Kabanicha.
And the message that should go ahead of Scottish Opera to all the airts and pairts is this: if you don’t know the musical language of Janacek, think of folk music. Everything in the opera, from its conversations to its scorching lyricism, derives from the wells of folk music and of speech. Then go and see it. It will sear your senses. It is sensitively directed by Kally Lloyd-Jones, though I disagree with her ending: Kabanicha should not crack; that stone bitch is heartless unto and beyond Katya’s death. The opera is extremely well-cast, with Joanne Boag (who is sharing the title role with Nadine Livingston) giving a shattering performance on Saturday. More anon, I’m sure, and of the rest of the cast. But do not miss pianist Ian Ryan’s awesome realisation of Janacek’s staggering score. It has everything: the detail, the sweep, the colour and the intensity.
****
