KENNY MATHIESON enjoys a successful small-scale touring production of Janácek’s opera.

SCOTTISH Opera’s admirable reduced scale touring programme in which a full opera is performed with piano accompaniment has generally focused on the lighter end of the operatic spectrum in productions like The Marriage of Figaro, Hansel and Gretel or Die Fledermaus.

Joanne Boag as Kátya Kabanová (© Eamonn MacGoldrick)

In that context, the decision to take on Janácek’s Kátya Kabanová as this season’s touring show is a bold one. Right from the ominous opening chords, it is clear that what lies ahead will inevitably be tragic, and Jan·cek’s operas are not yet common currency in the popular operatic repertoire in the same way that those of Mozart or Strauss are.

It is good to be able to report, then, that the gamble (if it is one) has paid off. The production was well-cast, and the set worked well even in the cramped confines of Victoria Hall, the smallest stage they will encounter on their tour. I suspect in the larger venues there will be more separation between the two areas representing the Kabanov household and the banks of the Volga.

Not for the first time, Ian Ryan’s superb pianism allowed us to forget the absence of an orchestra – the music was all there, and in some respects was thrown into even more intense relief in this form.

Joanne Boag (last seen in the Highlands & Islands on the Essential Scottish Opera tour earlier this year) and Nadine Livingston are sharing the role of the tragic Kátya. Boag sang it powerfully here, catching the tormented emotions and guilt-ridden grief of the doomed heroine very well. Jonathan Finney stood in for Michael Bracegirdle (who was unwell) as her lover, Boris, and acquitted himself soundly in the role.

Caryl Hughes, who sang Cinderella in the touring production of Rossini’s opera a couple of years ago, was a lively and vivacious Varvara, and Emma Carrington suitably icy as Kátya’s mother-in-law and nemesis, the heartless Kabanicha. Kally Lloyd-Jones, in her first foray into directing opera, rather compromised the latter character’s unforgiving stoniness by suggesting a moment of remorse over Kátya’s body at the end, not part of Janácek’s vision of the character.

The other twist in the finale was the means by which Kátya commits suicide, a bottle of poison being rather easier to stage than the traditional end, where she throws herself in the Volga. Lloyd-Jones did a convincing job on her debut, and drew playfully on her dance experience in the scene in which Varvara and Kudrjash (Ben Thapa) meet by the river prior to the more momentous encounter of Kátya and Boris.

Simon Crosby Buttle played Kátya’s husband, Tikhon, and captured perfectly his dithering, anguished confusion at being caught between his wife and hostile mother, with Anders Östberg as Dikoy, Raphaela Mangan as Glasha, and Paul Reeves as Kuligin.

The show tours until late October, with performances in Stornoway (19 September), Elgin (22 September), Aboyne (24 September), Lerwick (26 September), Kirkwall (29 September), Wick (1 October), Strontian (3 October) and Fort William (8 October) on their itinerary. The production will also be seen in Aberdeen and at Eden Court in Inverness in May 2010.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2009

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