Product Details

• Actors: Angela Denoke, David Kuebler, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
• Directors: Christopher Marthaler
• Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Kultur Video
• DVD Release Date: July 27, 2010
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003L16F9A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,669 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Leos Janácek's opera 'Katia Kabanova' follows the life of a middle-class family in the 1850s and is set on the banks of the Volga in a small town, Kalinove in Russia. Christopher Marthaler's modern production takes place in the 1990s and sheds a new light on this intense drama. Recorded at the Kleines Festspielhaus during the 1998 Salzburg Festival.

Katia Kabanova: Angela Denoke
Boris: David Kuebler
Kabanicha: Jane Henschel
Tichon: Hubert Delamboye
Varvara: Dagmar Peckova
Dikoj: Henk Smits
Kudrjás: Rainer Trost
Kuligin: Frédéric Caton
Glasa: Ulrika Precht
Feklusa: Elisabeth Starzinger
A Woman: Alena Cokova
A Man: Ulrich Voss
Viola D Amore: Ludwig Hampe

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Slovak Philharmonic Choir
Musical Direction: Sylvain Cambreling
Directed By Christoph Marthaler
Stage Design & Costumes: Anna Viebrock
Film Director: Pierre Cavassilas
Photos: Ruth Walz

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kultur has done it again but the production overcomes, August 5, 2010

By 

Archie (Ottawa ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Janacek - Katia Kabanova (DVD)

I am sure that others will write in a review of the opera per se. I just want to again express my great displeasure with Kultur. In the past in other reviews I pointed out the mediocrity of the company's VHS and DVD's and vowed never again to buy one of their products. Well, I have fallen again because I am an admirer of Angela Denoke and David Kuebler.

Despite the fact that this is a relatively little-known opera and it has a director's unique approach, there is no booklet with any background to this production -- just a single flimsy sheet with the bare chapter names. There is no bonus material of interviews, particularly with the director. There is no surround sound. English and none are the only choices for subtitles.

As I wrote before, I really wish that Kultur would go bankrupt and allow reputable companies to fill in whatever unlamented vacuum Kultur would leave behind.

********************************

ADDENDUM August 19

I am not allowed to submit two different reviews, but can add to my previous one (in which I awarded 1 star). Here it is below:


Since no one has written a review of this production per se, I suppose I should say something. My one (1) star evaluation was for the lack of various technical elements that Kultur omitted: multilingual subtitles, surround sound, background information and interviews. I deliberately omitted mention of the production. I am making up for that now.

"Katia Kabanova" is not a happy opera, and unlike "Jenufa", there is no hope or reconciliation at the end. Boris is held in thrall by a legacy to an abusive uncle; and Katia is part of a dysfunctional family under the control of an abusive Mother-in-law. Boris is overcome with a passion for Katia, and she responds only to be overcome with guilt and commits suicide after Boris is sent away by his uncle.

Janacek's music is wonderful, and at least until the end, is mostly lyrical -- until Katia starts her breakdown when it accurately reflects this. Sylvain Cambreling's conducting of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is, I think, first rate. Since the orchestral music has such a major role in this opera, this is important. Despite the fact that it is in stereo only, it is clearly audible in conjunction with the singers.

The singing and acting of all the on-stage performers in uniformly excellent. Angela Denoke, David Kuebler, Rainer Trost, and Dagmar Peckova in particular. I cannot praise them enough.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about the direction and staging. I understand that the orientation of Christoph Marthaler is usually quite pessimistic. That is certainly the case here. He has updated the time to presumably the 1950's in Eastern Europe. The set is a claustrophobic seedy courtyard where everything happens and where there is absolutely no privacy. There are always onlookers. That works very well for the first act. But the decision was made to present the opera without intermissions. As a result, Scene 2 of Act II and Act III, which should take place outside in the garden near the Volga, perforce also must take place in the courtyard. This mostly works well because the lack of privacy considerably heightens Katia's guilt. But in order for it to work near the end, characters who should be off stage are forced to stand facing the wall and the audience has to disregard them. There are other quibbles I have, but they are just quibbles. On balance, though, it is a well conceived production.

Because of the very high caliber of the singer/actors and the orchestral music, and because the director's concept is thought provoking and on balance successful, I will rate this as a 4 star production.

Also, there are only 2 DVD's of Katia Kabanva, and in my opinion in almost all respects (Felicity Palmer is a bit better than Jane Henschel) this production surpasses the earlier one from Glyndebourne -- also from Kultur with the same faults as this plus terrible sound.

*****************

Addendum, May 3


I must apologise to readers. I gave this production only 4 stars in my last addendum-- I took one away because I was unhappy with Kultur. That was misleading. There is a new excellent production with Karita Matilla which deserves 5 stars. This is at least as good; and, at least in my opinion, better as a total production. I prefer the explicit claustrophobic setting to the featureless open watery duckboards of the other. And I think that the casting of this is better -- not to take anything away from Ms. Matilla.

So up to 5 stars. I am still unhappy with Kultur, but the production here is wonderful.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Wonder if Old Leo Knew ..., November 18, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Janacek - Katia Kabanova (DVD)

... in his heart of hearts, that he was the greatest opera composer of his century and that his time would come? The first thought -- that Leos Janacek (1854-1928) was ineffably great, nay, the greatest of the great -- is obviously my own indefensible opinion. The second -- that his time has come -- is easily proven by examining the schedules of the major opera houses of Europe and the USA for the first ten years of the Third Millennium. Five of Janacek's operas have entered the holy circle of standard repertoire, and there are DVDs of all five available.

It wasn't always so. Following Janacek's death in1928, some fifty years passed before stagings of Janaceks's works outside Czechoslovakia became more than a rarity. The conductor Charles Mackerras played a large role in the rediscovery of Janacek, and the CD/DVD recordings of productions in which he conducted are the 'standard of excellence' still today. Of the four DVDs of Janacek's "The Cunning Little Vixen", Mackerras is the conductor on two, and they are miles better than the other two. The conductor of this Salzburg Festival performance of "Katya Kabanova" is Sylvain Cambreling, with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slovak Philharmonic Choir. I'm sure we'll hear wistful voices murmuring "if only Sir Charles," but Cambreling does a superb job here, worthy of the music and the Mackerras tradition. Janacek's operas are supremely symphonic. Not only are there extended passages of purely instrumental music, but also the vocal lines are tightly integrated into the orchestra texture. In other words, Janacek didn't write opera as a series of extractable flashbulb arias. It's said that he was abreast of and influenced by the works of his exact contemporary, Giacomo Pucci (1858-1924), but the two composers could scarcely be more different. Honestly, opera fans, don't you place them in different eras? Puccini in the 19th Century and Janacek in the 20th?

In any case, in a Janacek opera, it's the orchestra that narrates, that expresses the strongest passions and comments most profoundly on the 'content' of the drama. "Katia Kabanova" is a tragic story of emotional abuse, adultery, betrayal, and suicide. The human drama could scarcely be darker, and yet without a speck of Pucciniesque melodrama. This bleak scenario, nevertheless, is wrapped in a rapturous orchestral 'commentary' that affirms the beauty of passion, the immanence of the Life Force even in cruelty and folly. Janacek's passion for Life swells in all of his music. The five operas of his that you're likely to hear/see are all tragic, all psychologically and intellectually dark, but the music soars above depression. The sheer glory of Life transcends the pain of Living.

And this "Katia" is a strong production, musically and dramatically, despite the carping comments of the earlier amazon reviewers. There are two DVDs of "Katia" available, and I wouldn't hesitate for a moment in choosing this one over the other. Angela Denoke sings the role of Katya superbly; perhaps Karita Mattila would be even better, but what's the point of disdaining an excellent performance for a hypothetical one? Vocally, this cast is so uniformly excellent that there's nothing more to be said. Besides, Denoke acts her role with convincing intensity.

Janacek's operas all approach the founding ideal of opera as the synthesis of theater and music. "The Play's the Thing," as Hamlet said, that sends the audience home with something to think about. "Katia" is based on a play, "The Storm" by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. If that play were filmed, without music, the casting director couldn't do better than hire this crew of singers as actors. Everyone in this production "looks" the part, and in our era of filmed opera, looking the part is part of the art. Likewise, everyone "acts" on stage, passionately and effectively. This is truly an integration of theater and music...

... though I had my doubts during the first few minutes. Janacek's tale of adultery was conceived in the setting of a pre-modern village on the Volga in Russia, and Janacek's music, for this opera and for nearly all of his work, drew inspiration from the folk music traditions of his homeland. That richly melodic folk tradition is especially evident in the orchestral themes of Katia Kabanova. However, this Salzburg staging, directed by Christoph Marthaler, abandons the village setting and places the drama in a seedy apartment block in Soviet times, a scene of desperately grim ugliness. Costumes are shapeless and shabby; props are consistently crummy; what isn't drab is gaudy. My first reaction was to doubt the concept; the music and the drama won't coalesce, I thought. But I was premature. The concept did succeed; the claustrophobic atmosphere of the apartment block, where someone is always watching from a window or lurking in a corner, meaningfully extended the claustrophobia of the village, with its meddling neighbors and petty gossip. In fact, the 'concept' grew on me, as I considered its historical aptness; the narrow lives of the village did in fact become the narrow lives of urban slums, and the same people would have suffered the same obsessions, committed the same follies, in either setting.

Here's a list of Janacek's nine operas, with their English titles:
Sarka (1887)
The Beginning of a Romance (1894)
Jenufa (1904) - available on DVD
Osud (1904) - available on CD
The Excusions of Mr. Broucek (1920) - on CD
Katia Kabanova (1921) - on 2 DVDs
The Cunning Little Vixen (1924) - on 4 DVDs
The Makropoulos Case (1926) - on DVD
From the House of the Dead (1927) - on an excellent DVD

CAREFUL!!!! Amazon has transferred my review of the DVD with Angela Denoke in the title role (this review) to the product page of a newer and even better DVD, starring (as if to satisfy my wish!) Karita Mattila. A senseless confusion! I'll try to get it fixed. Meanwhile, grab the Mattila version while it's available, even if you already own the Denoke. They are very, very different!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful opera, distracting production, August 19, 2010

By 

Robert G. Vanstryland - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Janacek - Katia Kabanova (DVD)

Unlike another reviewer, I have no problem with the lack of "extras" on this DVD. The sound and picture quality are good and the English only subtitles are not an issue for an English speaking buyer. If you want to know more about the opera, the performers, or the production, you can do your own research instead of paying the manufacturer to do it for you. For the most part, Kultur provides a good product at a modest price and I would hate to do without this company.

That said, I have to report that, although this performance goes well musically, the production is full of distractions.There are extra characters (not specified by the composer and having no legitimate dramatic function) on stage. They observe and react to the drama (something we can do better ourselves) even when the events transpiring are obviously intended to take place in private settings, and they distract us from the real characters and situations. We should be thinking about Katya and her problems, not wondering who that guy is sitting in the corner or playing a fiddle upstairs. One of these characters spoils a musical interlude by laughing maniacally all through it.

The setting is updated (for no apparent reason) to what appears to be the latter part of the 20th century. Varvara spends much of her time on stage dancing (her first entrance reminded me of Steve Martin in a "wild and crazy guys" sketch). Instead of drowning herself in the Volga, Katya falls into a tiny pond in the middle of the town square. It is difficult to feel the tragedy while watching such absurdity. Since there is another "Katya" on DVD, also on the Kultur label, in a more honest and responsible Glyndebourne production, I suggest you pass this one up in favor of the other.