Pavel Černoch

Rusalka feels trapped in a world from which there is no escape. She is ready to put her immortality on the line in return for a human soul, so she can gain the love of a handsome prince. But she must pay for it with her voice. Muted and liberated from her dark world, she is forced to watch as the prince rejects her in favor of a foreign princess – dooming them both. She cannot live, she cannot die, yet nevertheless at the end, she helps the prince find his death with a “rescuing” kiss.

In Leoš Janáček’s opera Katya Kabanova, the title heroine is trapped in a dark web of human relationships. Her domineering mother-in-law Kabanicha controls her son Tichon, whose marriage to Katya suffers under this tyranny. Finding no fulfilment within this family, Katya turns to a secret love affair with Boris.

As his own librettist, Janáček condensed the plot of Alexander N. Ostrovsky’s play The Storm, deliberately omitting broader social depictions. Instead, he created a musical language of exceptional psychological sensitivity that traces Katya’s inner development. Feelings of guilt and emotional torment intensify until they culminate in her public confession — an emotional storm that sweeps everything away.

Stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski portrays Katya as an outsider, denied the chance to live according to her desires — a woman who ultimately chooses death over a life of hypocrisy. In this Munich production, the stage design, lighting, and video projections amplify Katya’s inner landscape and the social constraints that surround her.

Premiere: March 6, 2024, Bavarian State Opera, Munich