Gramophone Opera Award 2024: Janáček’s Katya Kabanova
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Corinne Winters is a standout Katya in this essential production
The naturalism and physical theatre of Barrie Kosky’s Salzburg production feels acutely faithful and sympathetic both to the score and to the ordinary folk on stage – sympathetic most of all to the figure of Katya, present almost throughout as both outsider and victim, foreshadowing both Grimes and Wozzeck but also drawing on an understanding of Puccini’s more downtrodden heroines such as Giorgetta.
This grasp of the work in the round also distinguishes Jakub Hrůša’s conducting, which ‘sings’ Czech with the characters, and rises to a special incandescence at points such as the storm interlude of Act 3. He puts the orchestra’s finesse at the service of the score’s violence and its wrenching shifts into ecstatic lyricism.
Above all, the success of this recording belongs to Corinne Winters as Katya. She is as affecting in her playful exchanges with Varvara as she is in the traditionally more central, pathos-laden aspects of the role. Throwing everything of herself into the part, she is matched in this regard by David Butt Philip, as Boris. But there is more than just ‘intensity’ to what they do, essential as that quality is in any Janáček. Paradoxically, the radically bare staging and detailed direction gives them the space to sing with the unfettered lyricism in the composer’s vision of a new Czech verismo. As Tim Ashley remarks in his original review, ‘You really do need to hear it.’ Peter Quantrill
The Recording
Janáček Katya Kabanova
Jens Larsen, David Butt Philip, Evelyn Herlitzius, Jaroslav Březina, Corinne Winters, Benjamin Hulett, Jarmila Balážová, Michael Mofidian et al; Vienna State Opera Chorus; VPO / Jakub Hrůša
Unitel Edition (10/23)
Director Barrie Kosky
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Runners-up
Wagner Parsifal
Soloists; Wiener Staatsoper / Philippe Jordan
Sony Classical (4/24)
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Bertin Fausto
Soloists; Les Talens Lyriques, Flemish Radio Choir / Christophe Rousset
Bru Zane (2/24)
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