Katja Kabanova

About the Event

Opera in three acts (19 1)

Music und Libretto von Leos Janacek
Adapted from the play 'Grosa' (The storm)
By Alexander Nikolajewitsch Ostrowski
Translated by Vincenc Cervinka


Performed in Czech with German surtitles

Conductor Kirill Petrenko
Director Keith Warner
Set and Costume designs Kaspar Glarner
Lighting Wolfgang Göbbel

Dikoj Anatoli Kotscherga
Boris Robert Brubaker
Kabanicha Anja Silja
Tichon Raymond Very
Katja Melanie Diener
Kudrjaš Johannes Chum
Varvara Stella Grigorian
Kuligin Gabriele Nani

Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Chorus director: Erwin Ortner)

New Production

Leoš Janáček wrote Káťa Kabanová shortly after the end of the First World War when, at the age of 66 and in love with a much younger woman, he entered the most productive phase of his life. In search of suitable material for an opera, Janáček came across the drama The Storm by the Russian writer Alexander Ostrovsky. The somnambulistic character of Káťa, who deliberately sacrifices her whole life to her vision of happiness, impressed the Czech composer so much that he decided to set Ostrovsky’s tragedy about guilt, self‐accusation and atonement to music.