Review: Katya Kabanova at Birmingham Hippodrome
There isn't much to the plot of this opera—girl in oppressive marriage, with waspish, domineering mother-in-law, has a brief fling with another man while husband is on business trip and, overcome with guilt, drowns herself.
Katya Kabanova, Welsh National Opera
Birmingham Hippodrome
Review by Jerald Smith
There isn't much to the plot of this opera—girl in oppressive marriage, with waspish, domineering mother-in-law, has a brief fling with another man while husband is on business trip and, overcome with guilt, drowns herself.
It's a story which needs more detail, but running at less than two hours there doesn't seem to be much opportunity for character development and questions about relationships aren't satisfactorily addressed.
Otherwise, this is a powerful and tragic tale which was certainly caught the imagination in last night's gripping performance.
Amanda Roocroft, in the title role, plays the character superbly well, delivering passion and remorse in the appropriate quantities at the right time, while Leah-Marian Jones is consistently the mother-in-law from hell. Stephen Rooke plays the ineffectual mother's boy Tichon quite convincingly.
Under musical director Lothar Koenigs, the through-composed score-which is shaped to the speech patterns of the Czech language- was an account full of vivid and dramatic orchestral colour fully supporting the emotional battles on stage.
