San Diego.(North America)(Kata Kabanova)(Opera Review)

As new productions go, set designer Jane LaMotte's Kata Kabanova for San Diego Opera was virtually free of any disturbing innovation, a defining characteristic perfectly complemented by the no-nonsense stage direction of SDO general director Ian Campbell, taking complete command of the company's first junket into Janacek. LaMotte's designs made sparing use of hanging pieces, realistic furniture and props, along with images derived from actual photographs of rural Russia: elaborate outdoor wooden fences in loving imitation of real ones; authentic church beams for the ruined building of Act III; and ultimately painted backdrops of misty trees along the banks of the Volga. An enormous virgin-and-child icon dominated the Kabanov living room, and Kata's Act I dream visions were accompanied by sunlight-infused images upstage. Other scattered expressionistic touches included a phantasmagoric angel on the fore-curtain, but the production remained a rough approximation of Chekhovian naturalism.

In radiant voice on opening night (April 17), soprano Patricia Racette, who sang Kata in Santa Fe last season, continued to make this ...