Katja Kabanowa

If there is one thing we can learn from the Czech composer Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), it is unreserved sympathy for his fellow human beings. Hardly any other composer portrays his characters in his operas with so much compassion and warmth that the audience in the theater cannot help but identify and suffer with the characters on stage. This is also the case with Katja Kabanowa. As the wife of a pale merchant who has not managed to emancipate himself from his domineering mother, Katya suffers from living conditions in the Russian provinces that are restricted by the church and morals. She dares to break out by throwing herself into a love affair with the attractive Boris. But in the end she has to realize that she cannot escape the power of rigid social conditions, so that she can only find the freedom she has longed for by going into the water.

In Linz, Peter Konwitschny will fan out the various psychological and social facets of this truly touching story of a person who is broken by her environment.