The Royal Opera House’s production of Katya Kabanova has won Best New Opera at this year’s Olivier Awards at a ceremony that took place yesterday (7 April) at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, London.
The new production by ROH director Richard Jones was part of the opera house’s 2018-19 winter season. This update of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s opera places Katya in a repressive and remote small town in the 1970s, whose provincial attitudes provoke isolation.
Katya is a lonely and neglected wife, trapped in a loveless marriage and torn between the possibility of love with her neighbour Boris and the sexual mores of the insular town in which she lives. American soprano Amanda Majeski made her Covent Garden debut in the title role. The production proved a hit with both critics and audiences.
The Royal Opera House received five nominations for the Olivier Awards 2019:
• Best New Dance Production: the Royal Ballet’s The Unknown Soldier.
• Outstanding Achievement in Dance: John Macfarlane for his design of the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake.
• Best New Opera Production: the Royal Opera’s Katya Kabanova and Lessons in Love and Violence.
• Outstanding Achievement in Opera: Andris Nelsons for his conducting of Lohengrin.
The Outstanding Achievement In Opera award went to the ensemble of Porgy And Bess at the London Coliseum.
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The Royal Opera House’s Katya Kavanova.