Kátia Kabanová

О событии

At the Palais Garnier in Paris, Angela Denoke revives Christoph Marthaler's shattering production of "Kátia Kabanová", perhaps Janácek's greatest masterpiece alongside "Jenufa".

A young woman deceives her absent husband, regrets it, confesses to him and throws herself into the river. There is nothing superfluous in Kátia Kabanová, nothing symbolic or decorative. Janácek simply moves the story forward, with nothing to halt or distract it, in a flight into the abyss that does not end even when Kátia dies. For the abyss is not her death but the obliviousness of a world whose course does not stop for even a single moment. The heart of the work lies not in its characters' fate but in the dull flow of that silent mass, inert but inexorable, which may equally well be called life or the Volga.

Janácek hesitated long before calling his opera after its heroine. He would have preferred three asterisks: an opera without characters, almost without a subject.

Performed in Czech.

Tomas Netopil    Conductor
Christoph Marthaler    Stage director
Joachim Rathke    Co‐stage director
Anna Viebrock    Sets and costumes
Olaf Winter    Lighting
Thomas Stache    Choreography
Stefanie Carp    Dramaturgy
Patrick Marie Aubert    Chorus master

Angela Denoke, Kátia
Vincent Le Texier, Saviol Dikoy
Jane Henschel, Kabanicha
Donald Kaasch, Tichon Kabanov
Jorma Silvasti, Boris Grigorievitch
Ales Briscein, Kudriach
Andrea Hill, Varvara

Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus