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OPERA REVIEW Karita Mattila, at an Opera's Center November 3, 2002
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By Olivia Stapp
The Finnish soprano Karita Mattila performed her first Kat'a
Kabanova at the San Francisco Opera today in brilliant style, combining
superb vocalism and profound character portrayal. Indeed her artistic thrust
is so powerful that after a few minutes of her presence onstage, we become acutely sensitized to her every delicate gesture and nuance. Few artists of this generation have such innate luminosity, this all-engulfing "fluidum" which pours out into the auditorium. In the past there were artists of the same
ilk; Stratas, Callas, Olivero, even Moedl come to mind. They are artists whose large souls on stage transcend the space and even the medium they are performing in, when provided with the right vehicle for their talents. Kat'a
is such a role for Mattila.
Kat'a Kabanova, based on the play "The Storm" by Alexander Ostrovsky and set to music by Leos Janácek (1921), takes place in the town of Kalinov on the banks of the Volga in the 1860s. Kat'a is a delicate
young woman married to a spineless man, who docilely submits to the demands of his cruel, dictatorial mother. Trapped in this hateful household, Kat'a
is continuously berated for not being dutiful, capable or modest enough. She longs to be loved and to be protected from this suffocatingly oppressive world. (Janácek writes about her that she is ". . . a woman with a gentle nature. She disappears when one merely thinks of her; a gentle breeze would waft her away, let alone the storm that bursts upon her.")
When her husband is forced by his mother to leave Kat'a alone to go on a business trip, she surrenders herself to the advances of another man. Her fragile nature is unable to bear her sin, and upon the return of her husband, and before all, she confesses her guilt. She flees into the stormy night, hoping at once for death, and then that her lover might rescue her and take her away. However, when he appears he declares ignominiously that he must depart alone in order to secure a financial benefit offered by his family.
Abandoned and delirious, Kat'a drowns herself in the Volga, to the voiced satisfaction of her stern and cruel mother-in-law.
A short two hours and eighteen minutes, including intermission, the opera allows the protagonist to react to the nefarious themes: the jealousy and spitefulness of the mother-in-law (majestically conveyed by the excellent Hanna Schwartz), the weakness and irresponsibility of the men whom she loves, Boris Grigorjevic and Tichon Kabanov (well portrayed by tenors Albert Bonnema and Richard Decker), and the temptations presented to her by her friend Varvara (pleasantly sung by Ute Doering). The apogee of the opera is an extended soliloquy in the final scene, in which all aspects of Kat'a's psyche are revealed: her rapturous descriptions of the release in death she longs for, the interior passions and desperate appeals for her lover. Mattila's emotional tone palette is rich with color, her vocal tone luxuriant, the baring of her soul daringly intimate. She stands achingly alone before the scrim, and holds us spellbound. This tour de force, by itself, makes for a memorable operatic experience. The supporting cast sang aptly, especially Katia Escalera, Philip Horst and Catherine Cook. The secondary roles of Dikoj (Victor Chernomortsev) and Vana (Raymond Very) were convincingly portrayed.
The bleak German "moderne" style stage setting, (there are the obligatory trench coats and bald heads everywhere) does nothing to help her. But it doesn't matter. Mattila's huge talent overrides the sour colours and visual negativity conveyed by the production "Team": Johannes Schaaf (director), Erich Wonder (set designer), Falko Herold (costume designer). The boldly geometric set achieves necessary indoor-outdoor effects by use of scrims. The loud thunderstorm includes rain onstage. But several inanities do detract from the performance, such as the servants' costumes — yellow and black striped in the manner of bumble bees. A visual metaphor run amok. The most egregious blunder, however, is the introduction of a shallow puddle of water on stage to represent the raging Volga, into which Kat'a flings herself to her death. Thus, the great dramatic denouement is made slightly ludicrous. Her dampened corpse is then loaded onto a stainless steel gurney to be examined, Wozzeck style, by two green-coated doctors dressed as though they just flew in from the Centers for Disease Control. The pall of this kind of shallow Germanic-style production values intrudes counterproductively upon this work. Although these devices might seem superficially to be a step in the right direction, their heavy-handedness distracts from the climactic moment of the performance. Janácek's romantic music is densely orchestrated and Donald Runnicles (conductor) was constantly alert to the inner moving lines and complex detail, yet never overpowering the stage. The musical themes, often just short, beautiful fragments, leave the listener longing for more soaring development especially on certain vocal lines and poetic utterances. Would that Janácek had listened to his wife Zdenka when she asked him: "Why don't you stay with that (theme) just a little longer?" But he answered her brusquely, "As if you could understand. I for one like it like that."
(Olivia Stapp is an opera director, formerly artistic director of Festival Opera (1995-2001), and has had a major international career as a soprano.)
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Richard Decker (Tichon)
Hanna Schwarz (Kabanicha)