The libretto is based on Ostrovsky's drama The Thunderstorm - a Russian Madame Bovary. As in Flaubert's masterpiece, the entire plot hinges on the adultery of a romantically inclined woman no longer able to bear the pressures of a repugnant and constricting environment.

Several characteristic differences emerge between the French and the Russian versions of this theme, tempting us to trace them back to differences in national character, or between East and West. Madame Bovary's vein of romanticism is primarily poetic and hedonistic, Kát'a Kabanová's more religious and introspective - which is not to deny Emma Bovary's very real religious traits. The winning quality of both figures is an artless nobility. By their very existence they protest against the narrowness of their surroundings, against provincialism and small-mindedness. In Madame Bovary's case these surroundings are marked by boredom, philistinism and imposture. Kát'a bears the greater burden, for she is enslaved - what is worse, enslaved to her own family. Her husband is a weak man, whose mother, the sinister Kabanicha, is the true driving force behind the drama. She rules with the conventions of so-called 'good breeding' - in reality nothing more than traditional mores. Her absolute tyranny within her family mirrors in miniature the ruthless power wielded by the tsars to keep the whole of Russia in bondage. From above came oppression by government, officialdom, a superstitious clergy; at home an entire household stood in thrall to the eldest family member. The aged Kabanicha is more than that time-honoured harridan, the 'wicked mother-in-law'; she stands symbolically for tsarist Russia, with its morality of blind obedience to arbitrary command.

In their final dénouements the French novel and the Russian play - which, though of the same generation, were probably written with no knowledge of each other's existence - are fundamentally different. Emma Bovary is the victim not merely of her disappointments, but of her straitened finances as well (bitter though this sounds, the bitterness fully accords with Flaubert's sceptical turn of mind). Kát'a, however, does not face disappointment: Boris is hers alone. There is no outward cause for her ruin, and in this respect the Russian work is the more powerful and gripping of the two in rendering the turmoil of human passion. Kát'a's death is brought about by inner forces, the lie and the sin simply overmastering her. Her very death makes her as pure and lovely as she ever was. Unable to bear the burden of her conscience she brings about her death, very much like Kleist's Penthesilea, by her own words: with no-one pursuing her, in no danger of discovery, she throws herself at the feet of her husband and her mortal enemy Kabanicha, confessing to all humanity her infidelity and openly demanding punishment.

It is this great scene of public confession that forms the psychological link between Janáček's Kát'a and his Jenůfa, or Její pastorkyňa ['Her Foster-Daughter']. Jenůfa likewise culminates in a similar repentant unburdening of guilt before the assembled villagers. Other analogous works from Slavonic literature suggest themselves, such as Tolstoy's Power of Darkness. I think I would not be wide of the mark in suggesting that, besides the play's impassioned plot, it was the scene of penitence which prompted Janáček's choice of this material. In addition, through his close family ties with Russia, and after two long [...] tours of the country, bringing him to the very banks of the River Volga where Ostrovsky's drama is set, he was especially receptive to t he subject matter and atmosphere of this work.

The River Volga figures in each of the six scenes that remained after Janáček's compression of the somewhat clumsy stage play. One sees the mighty river now from the quayside, now through the windows of a merchant's room, now again from the still uncharted river banks. This broad watery expanse flows through the entire work; clearly it is symbolic, but - of what? Symbols should always be ambiguous to the senses while remaining slightly beyond the reach of reason, lest they sink to the frigidity of allegory and its imprisoning system of meanings. From this standpoint, the Volga, both in Janáček's libretto and in his music, is the perfect example of an effective - because at root, inexplicable - symbol. Perhaps if one saw in the monstrous, ceaselessly flowing masses of water churning headlong in the Volga a symbol of the inexorability with which life in tsarist Russia, unchanging and invincible, marched with relentless tread over the corpses of its children - perhaps then one would approach its meaning, or some shade of it. What can Kát'a, pale and fragile, this pious rebel, do in the face of the timeless Volga? - this, or something like it, seems to be the message of each scene, a message repeated so often that, in the end, the unhappy woman flings herself into the river, perishing in its timeless depths. The Volga has triumphed, tsarist orthodoxy can continue on its way unimpeded. And even in the opening bars of the overture, in the ominous timpani strokes, one senses the remorselessness, the inexorability of this mighty, cruel, Russian world that has astounded us from time immemorial by its ruthless inflexibility.

Against this sombre background of an enslaved people one figure stands out - old Kabanicha, the work's true central character and prime motivating force. She embodies the tsarist ideal of absolute authority and unflinching obedience, projecting it into the domestic sphere where its effects are even more agonizing than in the wider canvas of public life. Kabanicha dominates her weak-spirited son Tichon, her domineering ways upsetting his marriage to the susceptible Kát'a. Gentle Kát'a rebels and, against her better judgment, falls for Boris, a young city-dweller of dubious noble ancestry who endures similar shackles to her own, being as much tyrannized by his uncle as she is by her mother-in-law. Destiny forces the two together, and the most riveting scene of the drama (left unchanged by Janáček) occurs when Kát'a and Boris sink into each other's arms, neither a free agent, each handing the guiding responsibility over to the other in the tumult of their feelings. But Kát'a cannot endure the lie that must follow. Normally a creature of pure heart and delicate religious sensibilities, she could momentarily forget herself as long as her husband was away. He returns and, under no compulsion, she confesses everything and seeks death in the Volga. Seduction against the voice of reason, a chaste, self-inflicted punishment - these link this work in spirit with Janáček's last song cycle, The Diary of One Who Disappeared. 'Love against one's will' might appropriately head either of these works, and in each of them it is just this triumphant unleashing of elemental forces, sweeping aside the barriers of custom and reason, that inspired the composer in the most poignant passages of his score.

The opera races by with all the strength of youth as though in a single breath. Janáček himself, in conversation, described the highest aim of his music as being to engage the listener's attention so completely that, at the end of an act, he would be hard put to explain what had happened, or why it had to happen in this way and no other. From climax to climax, outburst to outburst, this music of pure feeling intensifies with a tightness of construction never heard before. Right from the start, the overture, built from Kát'a's noble motif, augurs something extraordinary. After a subdued introduction from the plaintive, almost inaudible strings, a darting [oboe] motif is heard, accompanied by sleigh bells. It conjures up the endless steppe, parting, loneliness. This motif is heard again at Tichon's departure, as are the bells on the horses of the carriage waiting outside the door. At the beginning of the work, a slowed-down version of this 'departure' motif, in augmentation, can be heard on the timpani; thereafter it permeates the entire piece, recurring again and again until finally, in the confession scene, it flares out in thunderclaps and lightning flashes. Despite the forward surge of the opera, Janáček finds time for several other self-contained 'numbers' with the same effective immediacy as the overture, though there are fewer such numbers or arias here than in Jenůfa.

Both in emotional force and technical finish this opera surpassed everything Janáček had written to date. Even Janáček's disparagers have had to admit the mighty unity of its construction. It is the ripe fruit where Jenůfa, with its occasional inconsistent patches of dreamy colours, was the budding flower - though I hasten to confess my weakness for first flowerings, notwithstanding the many blessings of full summer. It is impossible to list the many lovely moments that stand out against the - to my taste - perhaps slightly contrived parlando style. The introduction to Act II speaks directly to the heart, as does, earlier, the great scene [in Act I scene 2] in which Kát'a recalls the happiness of childhood and her rapturous visions in church. Here, as the horn enters and the woodwinds slowly begin to span their giant musical arch over its melody - surely this moment should bring tears to the eyes of anyone sensible to music. Then comes the night-time love scene on the Volga [Act II scene 2], with the two contrasting couples: Kudrjáš and Varvara - vulgar, merry, drawn in folktunes; and Kát'a and Boris - heroic, their thoughts transported to realms of death and eternity. Both text and music of this scene make it worthy of a place in world literature, perhaps even a place of honour. There is a second love-duet in the last act, and here, as the muted strings lift up their mystical lay over the strangely altered harmonies, the two lovers kiss, and the listener thrills with them in sweetness and surrender.

As to the opera's technique, it is notable that its motifs, even more so than Jenůfa's, are frequently orchestral in origin, so that the theory that Janáček has pasted together 'speech-melodies' into operas is here less tenable than ever and deserves to be dismissed once and for all as absurd. The long cantabile oboe melody that refers to Kát'a, passing to the flute at her entrance, is, for instance, a motif that appears solely in the orchestra; a similar instance is the [...] 'flight' motif that opens Act I scene 2 and forms a background to the ensuing dialogue up to Kát'a's narrative. The cheerful Varvara is given a motif consisting of chords in quadruple flutes and celesta; it suggests a transparent hedonism kept within limits. It is interesting that this motif, which is confined to the orchestra at its first appearance at the beginning of Act II, later passes to the voice parts at the end of this act, appearing in free inversion, to form the melody of Varvara's and Kudrjáš's strophic song. Here what seems like a folktune in its own right has in fact emerged organically from the motivic tissue of the work as a whole.

The abundance of sheer musicality that found expression in Kát'a Kabanová could hardly have been exhausted in this terse, almost epigrammatic opera, fairly bursting though it is with musical invention. Indeed, it seems that in his old age, with many external obstacles now finally removed and even the public's and critics' disheartening lack of understanding beginning to give way, Janáček worked with greater ease, vigour and fruitfulness than when he was in the prime of life, with its many struggles and sorrows. Perhaps this was also partly due to the recent upsurge of cultural activities in Brno, and further to the strengthening of artistic ties between this city and Prague, which freed his work from the curse of provincialism and opened up the path to the rest of the Czech nation and to humanity - a path which, with all his genius, Janáček would have traversed long before this, if circumstances had permitted.

from Leoš Janáček: Leben und Werk (Vienna, 1925, enlarged second edition 1956)