Last week was a good one for Janacek fans. David Alden’s Jenufa was back at the English National Opera. Meanwhile, the English Touring Opera brought James Conway’s zippy, bold and characterful Katya Kabanova to town for one night only.

With its cast of small-minded provincial Russians chatting through Janacek’s uniquely nuanced vocal lines, this is the nearest opera gets to Chekhov.

Linda Richardson is the married Katya, who loves another and suffers for it. She’s not quite the fragile, flighty thing whose guilt is her death but her moments of ecstasy are sung with fine intensity. Miniature Richard Roberts is her nebbish love object Boris — their less than ideal physical match making their affair all the more ordinary and thus strangely more approvable.

The night’s standout performance is Fiona Kimm, who as Katya’s trenchant mother-in-law hollers her way into our bad books. Under Michael Rosewell’s baton, the sung dialogue sparkles with comedy, while the orchestra’s expansive melodising celebrates the hope in the hearts of our pathetic protagonists.

If I have to criticise, it would be the set. Adam Wiltshire creates a pretty uninteresting space for the action — a Jackson Pollock backdrop and a couple of platforms. Still, fine stuff. And it stops at Cambridge in April, if you fancy the trip.
www.englishtouringopera. org.uk