18.10.2016
The right time for The Storm
Leoš Janáček’s opera, based on Alexander Ostrovsky’s play The Storm, was performed by the Mikhailovsky Theatre during its 178th season. Back then, the production was given the name Katya Kabanova. The opera is now set to make its return to the theatre, with the première on 20 November. This time, the opera will bear the name of Ostrovsky’s original play.
The Storm is likely to strike a chord with contemporary theatregoers. Ostrovsky’s plays are experiencing a true renaissance, and The Storm is leading the way. Today, the play seems brand new, and all kinds of theatres, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and further afield, are staging new interpretations. In recent months, The Storm has been staged at the Vakhtangov Theatre, the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre, the Teatr na Vasilievskom, and the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre. A dance version is set to open in Tyumen this autumn. The Storm is a particularly topical opera for modern audiences, at a time when many feel that we are on the threshold of fundamental changes in our culture, with the old, familiar world seemingly on its way out.
Leoš Janáček is often described as the most Russian of the European composers. He was a great lover of the Russian literary classics, which inspired a number of his compositions. These include the symphonic rhapsody Taras Bulba; String Quartet No. 1, inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata; the opera From the House of the Dead, after Dostoyevsky’s novel; and the unfinished operas Anna Karenina and The Living Corpse. Katya Kabanova is the most brilliant of the composer’s Russian-inspired works and is considered to be one of the greatest operas of the twentieth century. The work pays homage to Ostrovsky’s talent through its subtle yet expressive music. Love, terror, despair — this opera has it all, along with dreams of happiness and the collapse of a world built on the shaky foundations of superstition and self-delusion. Interestingly, no actual storm — in the literal sense of the natural phenomenon — features in the music at all. Janáček thought that Tchaikovsky had addressed this theme more than adequately in The Queen of Spades, and so there was no need to go over the same ground again. Indeed, a literal storm might have been superfluous — for the opera is infused with more than enough tempestuous emotion to provoke existential crises.
The opera premiered at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in 2010. This marked the first staging of Janáček’s opera in St. Petersburg, and an important artistic milestone for the theatre. Critics were full of praise for the musical aspects of the production. “The point is not that the orchestra got it absolutely right in terms of tempo, emphasis, and style”, wrote the critics, “and nor is it that the musicians offered a sensitive interpretation of one of the most distinctive musical texts of the twentieth century. Rather, it is that the opera was simply filled with an enthusiasm one seldom sees; it was as fresh as the Volga air.”
Peter Feranec will be conducting at the premières, just as he did back in 2010. Feranec has always been an open admirer of Janáček, whose music is saturated with Slavic folklore and classical Viennese musical culture in equal measures, and in which a fine melodic line is combined with incredible expressiveness.
The Storm is likely to strike a chord with contemporary theatregoers. Ostrovsky’s plays are experiencing a true renaissance, and The Storm is leading the way. Today, the play seems brand new, and all kinds of theatres, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and further afield, are staging new interpretations. In recent months, The Storm has been staged at the Vakhtangov Theatre, the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre, the Teatr na Vasilievskom, and the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre. A dance version is set to open in Tyumen this autumn. The Storm is a particularly topical opera for modern audiences, at a time when many feel that we are on the threshold of fundamental changes in our culture, with the old, familiar world seemingly on its way out.
Leoš Janáček is often described as the most Russian of the European composers. He was a great lover of the Russian literary classics, which inspired a number of his compositions. These include the symphonic rhapsody Taras Bulba; String Quartet No. 1, inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata; the opera From the House of the Dead, after Dostoyevsky’s novel; and the unfinished operas Anna Karenina and The Living Corpse. Katya Kabanova is the most brilliant of the composer’s Russian-inspired works and is considered to be one of the greatest operas of the twentieth century. The work pays homage to Ostrovsky’s talent through its subtle yet expressive music. Love, terror, despair — this opera has it all, along with dreams of happiness and the collapse of a world built on the shaky foundations of superstition and self-delusion. Interestingly, no actual storm — in the literal sense of the natural phenomenon — features in the music at all. Janáček thought that Tchaikovsky had addressed this theme more than adequately in The Queen of Spades, and so there was no need to go over the same ground again. Indeed, a literal storm might have been superfluous — for the opera is infused with more than enough tempestuous emotion to provoke existential crises.
The opera premiered at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in 2010. This marked the first staging of Janáček’s opera in St. Petersburg, and an important artistic milestone for the theatre. Critics were full of praise for the musical aspects of the production. “The point is not that the orchestra got it absolutely right in terms of tempo, emphasis, and style”, wrote the critics, “and nor is it that the musicians offered a sensitive interpretation of one of the most distinctive musical texts of the twentieth century. Rather, it is that the opera was simply filled with an enthusiasm one seldom sees; it was as fresh as the Volga air.”
Peter Feranec will be conducting at the premières, just as he did back in 2010. Feranec has always been an open admirer of Janáček, whose music is saturated with Slavic folklore and classical Viennese musical culture in equal measures, and in which a fine melodic line is combined with incredible expressiveness.
