Káťa Kabanová
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Katja Kabanova |
| Original title: | Káťa Kabanová |
Poster of the premiere |
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| Original language: | Czech |
| Music: | Leoš Janáček |
| Libretto : | Leoš Janáček after Alexander Ostrowski |
| Premiere: | November 23, 1921 |
| Place of premiere: | National Theater Brno |
| Playing time: | approx. 1 ¾ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | The town of Kalinow on the Volga, second half of the 19th century |
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Káťa Kabanová (German also Katja Kabanowa ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček , who also wrote the libretto based on Alexander Ostrowski's drama Gewitter . The world premiere took place on November 23, 1921 in the National Theater in Brno . The German premiere took place on December 8, 1922 in the Cologne Opera House. Janáček worked on the composition from 1919 to 1921. Max Brod provided the German translation of the opera text .
action
first act
Teacher Kudrjaš sits on the banks of the Volga and enjoys the view of the river. Merchant Dikój and his nephew Boris, who is dependent on him due to a testamentary disposition, pass by by chance. Boris's grandmother had blackmailed him by stating a condition: she would only leave him an inheritance if he obeyed and obeyed his uncle Dikój until he came of age. His uncle takes advantage of Boris' submissiveness and lets him work on public holidays.
Now the merchant's widow Marfa, called the Kabanicha, appears with her son Tichon and his wife Káťa, with whom Boris is secretly in love. The Kabanicha is jealous of her daughter-in-law Káťa and accuses her son Tichon of not loving his mother as much since the wedding as before. To keep him away from Káťa for a while, she forces him to take a trip to the market in Kazan , as his father always did in the past. The weak-willed Tichon cannot prevail over her and agrees.
When Káťa is in a room with Varvara, Kabanicha's foster daughter, she tells her about her dreams and that she loves Boris, another man, until Tichon enters the room and says goodbye to her. Káťa asks him in vain not to go on the journey. When she tries to promise not to exchange words or looks with strangers until his return, he declines this request as senseless and instead, at the request of the mother, gives Káťa a stern admonition that they will be hardworking during his absence and obey his mother.
Second act
The Kabanicha always keeps the garden door of the property, which leads to the bank of the Volga, closed. However, Varvara secretly had a duplicate key made for them. She gives it to Káťa and tells her about the possibility of meeting Boris in the evening. However, she still has difficulty in giving free rein to her feelings about Boris. When one day Dikój pays his mother-in-law a visit and thus distracts her, Káťa Varvara follows to the garden gate, who wants to meet Kudrjaš there. Káťa is already expected by Boris, so she gradually gives in to her feelings and they both embrace. They split up late in the evening as Varvara urges them to return to the house.
Third act
Two weeks later, Káťa's husband Tikhon returned from his trip. During a violent thunderstorm, Kudrjaš, his friend Kuligin, Dikój, Boris and others seek shelter from the thunderstorm in an abandoned building. Káťa enters the building and interprets the thunderstorm as the wrath of the gods on her. She is therefore very upset and depressed and confesses to Kabanicha her adultery. Then she goes back out into the thunderstorm.
Tikhon worries about her and decides, together with some helpers, to look for her on the bank of the Volga. Their search is unsuccessful, so they give up. Káťa - wandering around on the bank of the river - calls Boris's name for help until he finds her. He tells her about the devastating news that his uncle has ordered him on a business visit to the farthest reaches of Russia. Káťa can't cope with this news, now has the feeling of being left alone and plunges into the floods of the Volga. Tichon is able to rescue her body dead from the river and collapses over the corpse.
Emergence
The choice of subject and the genesis of the opera are closely related to Janáček's passion for Kamila Stösslová. He had met the young woman in 1917 and had had a platonic passion for her ever since. The character of Káťa is inspired by Kamila, as Janáček described in a letter: “It was your picture that I saw in Káťa Kabanová when I was composing the opera.” It is the portrait of an unconventional, passionate woman who agrees with her conventions Time and its society breaks and pays a heavy price for it.
To the music
Janáček's musical language is closely linked to Czech, especially Moravian folklore. Together with František Bartoš , a connoisseur and collector of Moravian folk songs, he had published a corresponding collection. Like Smetana or Dvořák , however, he did not imitate folklore, but instead gained an independent, realistic musical language that made him appear as a Moravian representative of verismo . An inseparable word-tone relationship is characteristic of his operas, which takes up the style of the Czech language and transforms it musically. Janáček comments: “If someone spoke to me, I may not have understood what they were saying. but the tone of voice! I knew immediately what was going on inside him: I knew how he felt, whether he was lying, whether he was excited ... Sounds, the tone of human language, of every living being in general, had the deepest truth for me. It seems that these melodic fragments from everyday life are extremely important for individual musical characterization - especially for opera. "
The peculiarities of Janáček's rhythm are closely related to this method of transforming the speech ductus into music: the asymmetrical connections, the use of unusual, odd time signatures, the sudden transitions from one type of movement to another. These innovative contributions to the further development of opera, however, were hardly noticed during his lifetime, since both the Czech language and Janáček's departure from the mainstream operatic aesthetics of his time were obstacles to attracting an international audience.
literature
- Erik Chisholm: The operas of Leoš Janáček . The Commonwealth and International Library: Music Division. Pergamon Press 1971, ISBN 0-08-012854-8 / ISBN 0-08-012853-X , pp. 179ff.
- Michael Ewans: Janáček's operas . Reclam, Stuttgart 1981 (original title: Janáček's Tragic Operas , translated by Sebastian Vogt), ISBN 978-3-15-010301-2 .
- Michael Füting: Leoš Janáček - the operatic genius . Transit, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-88747-291-7 .
- Leoš Janáček: Music of Life. Sketches, feuilletons, studies , edited by Theodora Straková, translated by Jan Gruna (= Reclam's Universal Library , Volume 791). Reclam, Leipzig 1979, DNB 790437929 (with an attached study by Jan Racek (1905–1979): Janáček, the writer ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kabanicha or Кабаниха is pronounced harshly, not Kananitscha, but (Czech) “ch” like the Russian “х”, something like choir: a contra-alto and not soprano !
- ^ Michael Ewans: Janáček's operas . Reclam, Stuttgart 1981. ISBN 978-3-15-010301-2
- ^ Michael Ewans: Janáček's operas . Reclam, Stuttgart 1981. ISBN 978-3-15-010301-2
- ^ Jan Racek, Internetová encyklopedie dějin města Brna
Web links
Beginning of a novel (1894) | Jenůfa (1904) | Mr Brouček's excursions (1920) | Káťa Kabanová (1921) | The cunning little fox (1924) | Šárka (1925) | The Makropulos Case (1926) | From a house of the dead (1930, posthumous) | Osud (1958, posthumous)