Katja Kabanova

Opera in three acts based on Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm"
Music and libretto by Leoš Janácek
arranged by Eberhard Kloke
In Czech language with German surtitles

Why on earth did Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky name his drama like a weather report? Did he want to write a kind of theatrical twin to Beethoven's Pastoral with the title Gewitter? Hardly. In his book The Hero and His Weather - in our case it would be a heroine - Friedrich Christian Delius explains how authors of bourgeois realism use an artistic device - in our case the literary description of meteorological events - ideologically in order to give dramatic events the same inevitability as the meteorological events to which we see ourselves more or less defencelessly exposed every day. The ideology consists of suggesting an inevitability that is supposed to ennoble the dramatic events with the pathos of a blow of fate that comes like a thunderstorm, in order to stir our compassionate hearts for the agony of the innocent victims. It was Brecht who first described the world as man-made and therefore changeable and eliminated weather and fate from theater literature. But that was later.

So Katja Kabanova is less about bad weather and more about bad relationships. Katja has married Tichon, the son of the widow Marfa Ignatevna Kabanová. Her mother-in-law feels that she is pushing her out of her son's heart and is making life difficult for her. Tichon is defenceless against his mother and is unable to protect his wife. When Tichon is sent on a business trip by his mother, Katja cheats on her husband with their neighbor Boris. Boris doesn't have an easy life either. His uncle Dikoj manages his inheritance and it is only paid to him if he behaves decently towards Dikoj. This means he is subject to the man's whims. While Varvara, Marfa's stepdaughter, indulges in a secret liaison with the mechanic Kudrjaš without any moral scruples, Katja suffers from her transgression, which she finally admits publicly. To her own astonishment, the confession brings her no emotional relief and she decides to end her life - on a stormy night! - by jumping into the Volga. In the end, however, Tichon makes it a little easy for himself with his verdict to his mother: "You killed her!".

Musical direction: Christoph Gedschold
Director: Bernd Schmitt
Stage: Eckhard Reschat
Costumes: Elena Popova

Performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with wind players from the HMDK Stuttgart and the Erasmus Ensemble Stuttgart.

With Javier Agudo, Jonathan Bär, Nicolas Calderón, Daniel Domarecki, Rebecca Herter, Shaoyu He, Yasmina Klingel, Sion Lee, Sewon Oh, Sejin Park, Janina Schweitzer, Miriam Wagner, Katarina Zorec

A production of the Opera School of the HMDK Stuttgart

30 minutes before each performance there will be a short introduction to the work in the studio of the Wilhelma Theater. Admission is free.