Name: Janacek: Katya Kabanova
Price: 20.75 USD
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…Rizzi illuminates… with almost Puccinian warmth, while keenly evoking the tightening tensions beneath. …Barker's… intense soprano, large for the role, makes Katya sound stronger than usual... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2007, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 1st Oct 2007
Catalogue No: CHAN3145(2)
Label: Chandos
Series: Opera in English
Length: 91 minutes

BBC Music Magazine Awards

2008

Opera Finalist
Gramophone Awards

2008

Finalist - Opera
BBC Music Magazine

December 2007

Opera Choice

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Janáček: Katya Kabanova (Kat'a Kabanova), JW I / 8 (Sung in English)

Work length1:30:39

$33.60

$41.60

Cheryl Barker (soprano), Gwynne Howell (bass), Robert Brubaker (tenor), Peter Wedd (tenor), Claire Hampton (soprano), Philip Lloyd-Holtam (tenor), Kathleen Wilkinson (mezzo-soprano), Peter Hoare (tenor), Jane Henschel (mezzo-soprano), Victoria Simmonds (mezzo-soprano), Owen Webb (baritone), Sian Meinir (mezzo-soprano)
Welsh National Opera Chorus, Welsh National Opera Orchestra
Carlo Rizzi
Recorded: 11-15 December 2006
Recording Venue: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, UK

Introduction

Track length4:20

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Act I Scene 1: Marvellous! Really, just admit it (Kudryash, Glasha)

Track length1:34

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Act I Scene 1: What d'you think you're hanging around for? (Dikoi, Boris)

Track length0:57

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Act I Scene 1: Is your mistress at home? (Dikoi, Glasha, Kudryash, Boris, Feklusha)

Track length3:22

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Act I Scene 1: All of them so good and pious (Feklusha, Boris, Kudryash)

Track length1:20

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Act I Scene 1: If you want to obey your mother (Kabanicha, Tichon, Katya, Varvara)

Track length4:30

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Act I Scene 1: Intermezzo I

Track length1:06

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Act I Scene 2: I'm always wondering (Katya, Varvara)

Track length5:46

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Act I Scene 2: Madness? Oh, how I wish I really knew (Katya, Varvara)

Track length2:56

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Act I Scene 2: Ah, but you, what can you know of this? (Katya, Varvara, Feklusha, Glasha, Tichon)

Track length1:56

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Act I Scene 2: Do you not love me any more? (Katya, Tichon)

Track length2:52

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Act I Scene 2: It's time, Tichon (Kabanicha, Tichon, Katya)

Track length3:59

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Act II Scene 1: There now, you're always boasting (Kabanicha, Katya)

Track length2:04

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Act II Scene 1: It's so warm indoors (Varvara, Katya, Dikoi, Kabanicha)

Track length3:23

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Act II Scene 1: No, no, no one, yet my heart was beating (Katya)

Track length2:13

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Act II Scene 1: It's nothing much (Dikoi, Kabanicha)

Track length2:37

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Act II Scene 1: Intermezzo II

Track length0:56

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Act II Scene 2: Introduction

Track length1:14

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Act II Scene 2: Nobody here yet! (Kudryash, Boris)

Track length3:37

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Act II Scene 2: Far away my love is gone across the water (Varvara, Kudryash, Boris)

Track length1:46

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Act II Scene 2: Is that you, Katerina Petrovna? (Boris, Katya)

Track length5:26

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Act II Scene 2: So you've found each other (Varvara, Boris, Kudryash, Katya)

Track length5:46

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Act III Scene 1: Raining! There's a storm coming (Kuligin, Kudryash, Dikoi)

Track length4:06

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Act III Scene 1: Psst! Psst! Boris, listen to me! (Varvara, Boris)

Track length1:06

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Act III Scene 1: Oh, Varvara! I shall die! (Katya, Zena, Varvara, Chorus, Kudryash, Dikoi, Kabanicha, Tichon)

Track length2:43

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Act III Scene 2: Ah, Glasha! It's awful to think of it (Tichon, Glasha, Varvara, Kudryash)

Track length2:00

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Act III Scene 2: No! Nobody here (Katya, Kuligin)

Track length5:20

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Act III Scene 2: And yet death won't come to me (Katya, Boris)

Track length4:26

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Act III Scene 2: Thanks be to God! (Boris, Katya)

Track length1:50

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Act III Scene 2: No, not that! (Katya, Boris)

Track length2:41

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Act III Scene 2: Birds will sing as they fly above me (Katya)

Track length0:49

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Act III Scene 2: Hey there, a woman has jumped in the river! (Kuligin, Passer-by, Dikoi, Glasha, Tichon, Kabanicha)

Track length1:58

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About
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Composer Guides, Leoš Janáček

Katherine surveys recordings of Janáček and makes some recommendations.

The tragic libretto portrays a woman driven to despair and suicide by her husband and monstrous mother-in-law. The result is a deeply moving, intensely lyrical work, as engaging in the beauty of the vocal and orchestral writing as in its story – which also revealed the tragedy of Slavic provincial life, of which Janácek was only too well aware: ‘There is much sadness and Slav tenderness and depth of feeling in it. May I find the right way to express it with equal intensity’, wrote Janácek on The Storm, the Ostrovsky play that was his source for Katya Kabanova.

Only available recording in English

Reviews

December 2007

…Rizzi illuminates… with almost Puccinian warmth, while keenly evoking the tightening tensions beneath. …Barker's… intense soprano, large for the role, makes Katya sound stronger than usual yet also more neurotic… Her grief over Boris, sung with appropriate charm and vague callousness by Robert Brubaker, and her useless husband Tichon, well sketched by Peter Hoare, are just the agents. Katya's real downfall is the trap set by her oppressive mother-in-law Kabanicha... Jane Henschel sings her with steely hauteur…

2010

This is the fifth Janácek opera in Chandos's Opera in English series, and with vivid, well separated sound, balancing the voices in front of the orchestra, the first impression is how clear the words are from the singers of the Welsh National Opera production on which the recording is based.
It is fascinating to compare this version with Mackerras's Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic and an excellent, mainly Czech cast, Elisabeth Söderström taking the title-role. If that recording is marginally richer and weightier than the new Chandos, the strings of WNO play with comparable refinement. Rizzi's interpretation in all three acts is a degree more urgent, with speeds consistently faster, no doubt reflecting his experience of conducting it live.
As in the English Makropulos Case, the principal singer is Cheryl Barker, fresh, clear and powerful, more girlish-sounding than Söderström.
Gwynne Howell as the merchant Dikoi, uncle of Boris, is also excellent.
The old Norman Tucker translation is used with some minor amendments by Rodney Blumer, nom de plume of critic Rodney Milnes, with words admirably clear throughout, adding to the dramatic impact of the piece.

December 2007

Carlo Rizzi, who conducted the live performances for WNO, is a comparably persuasive Janácek interpreter. As in the English Makropulos Case, the principal singer is Cheryl Barker, fresh, clear and powerful, more girlish-sounding than Söderström. Jane Henschel is outstanding as Marga Kabanova, the rich widow who persecutes her daughter-in-law, wonderfully rich and firm throughout her range. The three tenor roles are exceptionally well taken, even if the contrasts between Robert Brubaker as Boris, Peter Wedd as Kudryash and Peter Hoare as Tichon, husband of Katya and son of Marfa, are not ideally marked. Another outstanding issue in the Opera in English series.

May 2014

Even if you're normally allergic to opera in translation, the Janáček operas in Chandos's Opera in English series are well worth checking out: this one boasts a strongly-sung Katya from Australian soprano Cheryl Barker, with characterful support from the men and a truly venomous performance from Jane Henschel as Kabanicha, the mother-in-law from hell.

Venue Magazine

Cheryl Barker’s Katya is a huge achievement, rapturously sung, pertinently acted…

Janacek: Katya Kabanova

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Composer Guides, Leoš Janáček

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