This review first appeared in the Western Mail
An evening of Janacek's Katya Kabanova is always going to be a brooding and intense affair.
In the hands of producer Katie Mitchell it also becomes a dramatically stimulating, if at times gnawingly flawed, two hours.
Transposed into a post-revolutionary Russia, maybe the '20s or '30s, our drama unfolds in a functional caf and concludes in a station waiting room.
Were it not for the production sung in Czech rather than clipped English you could be forgiven for drifting into a Brief Encounter moment.
Vicki Mortimer's stark, simple sets and the use of screens, opening and closing to create different heights and widths for different scenes, both achieve focus and reinforce the stifling hypocrisy and small-mindedness of the repressive, ignorant and superstitious society.
The all-important storm scene, where Katya finally cracks and confesses her adultery, works particularly well with all classes of the provincial society huddling and cowering as the forces of nature are unleashed around them.
Mitchell appears to want her characters to remember the fourth wall - the invisible wall between the stage and the audience - and so we have characters sitting either with their backs or profiles to the audience.
Only when Katya is on the verge of suicide does she sing to the audience, but equally in her deranged state she could be addressing a blank wall.
The outdoors is somewhere to escape to; freedom from the stifling control of her mother-in-law and so when Katya does meet her lover Boris in a park by the Volga the effect is the more liberating.
What jars is the resetting of a semi-feudal society that has not heard of lightning rods, ridicules electricity and regards storms as God's punishment into a Russia of industrial, scientific, cultural and social advancement.
Cheryl Barker's Katya was both emotionally and intellectually stimulating. Her performance is convincing and the beauty of her singing bright, clear and affecting.
Suzanne Murphy is perfectly strident and domineering as the mother-in-law, Kabanicha.
The Tichon of Andrew Forbes-Lane, convincingly cowering and weak, is an ideal contrast to the more bold and tempting Boris, played by Tom Randle.Particularly enjoyable were the charming portrayals of the lovers Vanya and Varvara by a splendid David Curry and Arlene Rolph.
The Dikoy of Alan Fairs is here presented as a particularly objectionable hypocrite.
Under the direction of Steven Sloane, the orchestra enjoys the challenge of Janacek's orchestra writing which nothing on stage detracts from, not even an attempt at a clever screen between acts, allowing the audience to concentrate its attention on that music.
Katya is no picnic on the banks of the Volga, but the Cardiff audience clearly relished their one night of Jancek this season.
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