The Grand Théâtre’s exploration of Leoš Janáček’s operas continues this season with his searing tragedy, Katia Kabanova. First seen in Brno in 1921, the opera is based on Alexander Ostrovsky’s drama The Storm and charts Janáček’s enduring obsession with Russian literature. Yet it also opens a window onto the composer’s soul, written in the white heat of his passion for Kamila Stösslová, the woman who became his muse during a final decade of unbridled creativity. Living in Moravia, unhappily married, Janáček felt kinship with his heroine, who yearns to escape her drab provincial home and loveless husband, Tichon. Witnessing the carefree life of Varvara and Váňa, Katia embarks on an adulterous and disastrous relationship with Boris. Dreams of freedom and sultry nights on the River Volga draw music of staggering beauty from Janáček’s pen. Swelling through the orchestra, it offers a stark contrast with the brutal world that forces Katia to drown herself.
These performances reunite soprano Corinne Winters, appearing in the title role, and the highly acclaimed German director Tatjana Gürbaca, following their triumph with Janáček’s Jenůfa last season. They are joined by conductor and principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, Tomáš Netopil and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, with a cast that includes Netopil’s fellow Czech Aleš Briscein as Boris, returning to Geneva after his success in War and Peace last season, and the impressive Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova as Katia’s timorous mother-in-law. Croatian mezzo Ena Pongrac and Welsh tenor Sam Furness play the young lovers, Varvara and Váňa, the only people able to realise their dreams of escape. Gürbaca and her well-honed team’s gripping production tells of Katia’s desperate search for ecstasy in this narrow and claustrophobic world. Forbidden to work, she is surrounded by the banal and the morally bankrupt, with an older generation that has turned against the young and denies her any opportunity. Instead, she craves a higher sense of purpose that she finally discovers in the Volga’s pantheistic force, with the river offering that necessary alternative to a life without divinity. So, while Katia’s final decision is a desperate one, it is also a flight into nature. In turn, it inspired one of Janáček’s most potent creations.