Cold discomfort: an uncompromising Kát'a Kabanová

By Hugo Shirley, 15 June 2017

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Reviewed at Schillertheater: Großer Saal, Berlin on 14 June 2017

Janáček, Kátya Kabanová

Staatsoper Berlin

Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor

Andrea Breth, Director

Annette Murschetz, Set Designer

Silke Willrett, Costume Designer

Eva-Maria Westbroek, Kátya

Simon O'Neill, Boris

Rosalind Plowright, Kabanicha

Stephan Rügamer, Tichon

Pavlo Hunka, Dikój

Florian Hoffmann, Kudrjaš

Anna Lapkovskaja, Varvara

Arttu Kataja, Kuligin

Marc Weeger, Costume Designer

Alexander Koppelmann, Lighting Designer

Frank Flade, Choirmaster / chorus director

Staatskapelle Berlin

Staatsopernchor Berlin

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Hugo Shirley

Hugo Shirley is a Berlin-based writer and musicologist. He has written widely as a critic in the UK, including for The Spectator, the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, and has held editorial posts at both Opera and Gramophone. He was editor of 30-Second Opera (Ivy Press, 2015) and has a PhD in musicology from King's College London, where his thesis focused on Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Cold discomfort: Andrea Breth's uncompromising Kát'a Kabanová at the Staatsoper