Seen & Heard International Review: Kristine Opolais gives a sensational portrayal of Shostakovich’s Katerina at the Enescu Festival

19/09/2025 by Gregor Tassie

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death, and his legacy is being commemorated here in Romania, albeit in a concert performance of his ill-fated opera. Several of the symphonies and chamber works are being performed over the four weeks. Concert performances can often be more convincing to audiences, as the recent semi-staged performance at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall proved. This performance in Romania was dominated by a visual backdrop of projections of images from the opera’s narrative set in a farm of the American Mid-West, conceived by the multimedia director, Carmen Lidia Vidu. This was the only disappointment of the evening as it was an AI conception portraying the characters throughout the scenes of Lady Macbeth yet was confusing for those in the audience unfamiliar with Shostakovich’s opera. One other cause for confusion was that several singers doubled up for other characters; this was most striking in the key role of Katerina’s stepfather, played by the outstandingly gifted German bass Andreas Bauer Kanabas. His role is a significant one as the protagonist to Katerina, accusing her of infidelity to her husband Zinovy, who is often away from home. Kanabas returns as a ghost after he is poisoned, and then later as the old convict in Siberia when he condemns Katerina for her sins. Kanabas was outstanding throughout in his characterisation and powerful singing – his stage presence with his dramatic expression dominated every scene.

Another fine singer on the evening was Andrey Popov’s drunken worker, who epitomised perfectly the tipsy and vulgar tradesman, evinced by his insulting depictions of Katerina’s infidelity, and later betrays her by revealing the corpse of the murdered stepfather Boris. As the sometimes-loyal worker on the Izmailov estate, Popov unveiled a beautifully clear tenor voice. Aurel Frangulea’s depictions of the Police Inspector and earlier as the Porter were other highlights revealing the sincerest characterisations through each intoned nuance. Of the secondary parts, in Act III, Maria Barakova’s Sonetka was exceptional, catching every tone, as if living the role of a bitchy rival to Katerina’s beloved Sergei and dismissing her with a desperately wicked ‘Fool, you’re a fool!’ before the terrible finale. Her scream set the tone for the final debacle chillingly.

Of all the singers, it was Kristine Opolais’s Katerina who was at the heart of the whole show; the Latvian soprano expressed her role with outstanding emotional spirit and endurance, characterising the role of the lover of her charming yet unfaithful lover Sergei. The transformation of her portrayal of the bewitching and loveless wife of Zinovy, to the trapped, lonely mistress of the estate, and finally as the betrayed and abused mistress condemned as a murderer on a convict convoy, Kristine Opolais’s Katerina – as in Leipzig in May – is surely among the greatest portrayals of her career. She evinced every nuance of the challenging characterisation in a quite astonishing and vocally dramatic performance, with every gradation of emotional feeling expressed.

Andreas Bauer Kanabas gave another powerful performance in characterising the brutally selfish father of Katerina’s weak-willed and simple Zinovy, who leaves for a business trip, ignoring the threats of his wife being abused in his absence. Kanabas was the complete characterisation of Boris Timofeyevich in his desire to assume control of his old property by first taking his son’s wife as a lover, but beaten to it by his supervisor, Sergei. He was splendidly assumed by Sergei Polyakov who, in an excellent portrayal, showed all the makings of a maverick lover just using Katerina and ultimately driving her to a cruel death.

In this performance the singers would walk on or off the stage with no props, and only the visual projection behind the orchestra hinted at what was going on, as the singing was in the original Russian, and the surtitles were in Romanian. Several singers were Russian, and a knowledge of the language was essential; the truthful adherence to the text was excellent, bringing out all the brutality of the opera’s tragic drama. Towards the end of the terrible final tragedy, the plight of Katerina became clear and ever so deliberately, the outstanding conductor Giancarlo Guerrero brought it all to a close with a terrifically vehement and grotesque climax evincing the brutality of the closing scene. The major credit for this movingly powerful performance must be given to Guerrero – this was a triumph in solving the considerable challenges of the score and manifesting the tragic and terrible indictment of society’s abuse of women.

Guerrero’s masterly analysis of the score and his authority in guiding this excellent orchestra of Romanian Radio was at the centre of the evening. The orchestra unveiled world-class virtuosity with the brass group in particular showing the often ribald brutality of Shostakovich’s orchestration, with the woodwind matching them with the quirky intonation of the composer’s frequently piquant and satirical score. At significantly dramatic moments, Guerrero brought out the expressive passages on the violas which was another eloquent and impassioned element of Shostakovich’s orchestration. The male and female choruses were equally distinguished at times in the wedding feast depicting drunken peasants, and at other points singing Shostakovich’s tragically adapted folk songs as the convicts in Siberia ‘Ah, steppes, you are so endless…’.

At the heart of Shostakovich’s opera is the terrible abuse of womenkind by men; a trend as clear now, as it was in nineteenth-century Russia. Shostakovich had written this opera as the first in a trilogy raising the plight of womenkind and their unjust treatment by humanity. Instead of a second and a third opera, his composing was dedicated to symphonies and string quartets touching on the problems of war and peace, within which lie the oppression of both men and women. Shostakovich left a huge legacy, yet there will always remain an enigma as to how Shostakovich might have emerged as a great opera composer. Nevertheless, this opera performance was one of the great highlights of the 2025 Enescu Festival, notable for distinguished and superlative contributions by Kristine Opolais, Andreas Bauer Kanabas, and at the focal point, the sensational direction of Giancarlo Guerrero.

Gregor Tassie

Featured Image: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the George Enescu International Festival © Alex Damian

Cast:
Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov / Ghost / Old convict – Andreas Bauer Kanabas
Zinoviy Borisovich – Vincent Wolfsteiner
Katerina Lvovna – Kristine Opolais
Sergei – Sergei Polyakov
Sonyetka – Maria Barakova
Aksinia – Michelle Trainor
Drunken Guest / Tattered peasant – Andrei Popov
Priest – Benjamin Pop
First worker/ Teacher – Ciprian Mardare
Second worker – Sergiu Stana
Third worker – Marius Olteanu
Coachman – Nicolae Simonov
Courier / Sergeant – Cristian Ruja
Police Inspector / Porter – Aurel Frangulea
Sentry – Ion Emanuel
Steward – Cornel Popusoi
Female convict – Olga Murariu-Caia

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