In the soul prison

Katja Kabanova’s terrible last days actually take place in the open air, in the village, on the street, in the garden, plus death in the Volga.

Nonetheless, directors have gladly resorted to interior spaces to symbolize the hopelessness of history, the claustrophobic atmosphere in which this life must be lived: Christoph Marthaler 1998 in Salzburg, Michael Thalheimer 2005 at the Berlin State Opera, there with the congenial idea that to let the available playing area become smaller and smaller in the course of the evening, until only the jump into the orchestra pit remains.

Director Jetske Mijnssen also chooses this route at the Komische Oper, for the anniversary production of Leos Janácek’s “Katja Kabanowa” almost 100 years after its premiere in Brno in 1921. A sequence of narrow, high rooms (stage design: Julia Katharina Berndt) can be seen, stuffy, musty, mustard yellow, as if looking into the anteroom of Erich Mielke’s Stasi headquarters.

There are huge doors, but they remain closed for the time being. The rooms wander from left to right and back, so that you soon lose track of how many there actually are, they all look the same: A soul prison in which Katja, thirsty for life, has to endure the tyranny of her mother-in-law, the Kabanicha – and the passivity, the only sporadic rebellion of her husband Tichon (Stephan Rügamer), who is completely under his mother’s thumb.

A horrible nice family

Janácek’s original, a play by the Russian playwright Aleksandr Ostrowski, is set in the deepest Russian province of the 19th century and fortunately has a long safety margin from the reality of life for many women in Western societies today.

Mijnssen prefers to dissect this terribly nice family at the dinner table, a situation that is traditionally peppered with faux pas and traps.

At some point the big doors open too, but behind them there is little more than another wall of billowing fog: For Katja there is no hope, nowhere. In terms of scenery, it is haunting and worth seeing.
This premiere is shaped by three women: In addition to the director, the Berlin soprano Annette Dasch in the title role, which is also her house debut.

The vocal strength required for Bayreuth she can skilfully put aside, finds soft notes and – as far as the reviewer who does not speak this language can judge – successfully slips into Czech, which is so important for Janácek’s works.

Actually, however, there would have been more colors in it, this Katja is actually always the same desperate woman from the beginning, there is a lack of nuances, moments of happiness, in short: the height of fall.

The fact that she is possibly not entirely innocent of her own situation, that she fails because of inner incompetence, as the director suggests in the program: That remains an assertion, cannot be seen in Annette Dasch’s interpretation.

One of the highlights of her performance is a silent one: she has just committed adultery with Boris (Magnus Vigilius), a brief moment of outburst and ecstasy that Janácek, who also wrote the libretto, does not directly show. Mijnssen lets Dasch step through a door, lit from behind.

The third woman of the evening is the young Latvian conductor Giedre Slekyte, who has devoted herself to a certain moderate balance, she smooths and buffers, seems to want to circumvent the garish peaks and deep fissures of this score, which follows the style of the Czech, to alleviate.

In doing so she prepares the ground for ramps like Jens Larsen, whose powerful bass can be just as hilarious as it is terrifying and which thus shapes every role; here he sings Boris’ dictatorial uncle, the merchant Dikoj, who is on par with the Kabanicha in terms of sadism and therefore only logically gets into bed with her (in this production: on the table). In him, irrepressible strength wrestles with extreme tension, which externally discharges in a kind of waddling penguin walk.

The Kabanicha is the worst of all mothers

The Kabanicha is likely to be ranked just behind Strauss’ Klytämnestra on the scale of the worst mothers in opera literature. Doris Lamprecht gives her the aura of a strict village school teacher, lurking in a controlled manner, it can break out of her at any time – then she spits on Katja when she tries to get her husband to kiss her one last time before he leaves. Inwardly, she is eaten away by unnecessary jealousy of her daughter-in-law.

But director Mijnssen wants to show that there is a person behind this facade, too, wants to differentiate – and unlike Katja, she manages to do that to a certain extent. According to the libretto, the Kabanicha cold-heartedly thanks those present after Katja’s death, but here you can see that it is attacking her after all, that she is tottering, collapsing. After a short 45 minutes it is over.

In “Katja Kabanowa” Janácek has condensed the events to the essentials, an opera like a lightning bolt, like Strauss’ “Elektra”, like Puccini’s “Tosca”.

In the pandemic there is of course no premiere party, Artistic Director Barrie Kosky relocates his short address to the stage and puts the evening in the tradition of Felsenstein’s claim to truthfulness. And encourages everyone, on stage as well as in the hall: “I know we will be fully occupied again, without a mask, PCR, gargling, without vaccination.” Unlike in Vienna, where he staged shortly before, this performance can take place in Berlin at least take place in front of an audience.

Let’s see if that still applies to “Orpheus in the underworld”. The premiere at the Komische Oper is on December 7th.