Janá¿ek's
Katya Kabanova (1921), a grim tale of adultery, insanity, and suicide, has seen more frequent performances in recent years. This recording is the result of a desirable sequence of events: a concert performance that followed a fully staged performance, allowing the singers to deepen their encounters with the music. The staged opera was given at the Royal Opera House. The concert performance was made later at the Barbican, with microphones, and the recording quality is unusually good. Everything feels close-up; the orchestra was on stage, not in a pit, and the drive and color of
Simon Rattle and the
London Symphony Orchestra come through in full.
Rattle's wife, mezzo-soprano
Magdalena Ko¿ená, gets top billing, understandably enough, in some listings of this recording. However, it is really soprano
Amanda Majeski, in the title role (
Ko¿ená is sister Varvara, who leads Katya to her doom), who deserves most of the credit for the considerable dramatic effectiveness, catching all the details of her character's deterioration. In addition to the Royal Opera House production, she has sung the role at the Chicago Lyric Opera and several other major houses, and she now knows it arguably better than any other singer. There are pleasures here among the rest of the cast as well, but the attraction here is to experience an excellent interpretation of one of the great roles in 20th century opera. ~ James Manheim
