04 Nov 2004

FT Reviews Kát'a Kabanová

Kát'a Kabanová, Paris Opéra (Garnier) By Francis Carlin Published: November 4 2004 02:00 | Last updated: November 4 2004 02:00 After Salzburg, Brussels, Barcelona, Toulouse and several showings on TV, Christophe Marthaler's Kát'a Kabanova has at last turned up in...

Kát'a Kabanová, Paris Opéra (Garnier)

By Francis Carlin
Published: November 4 2004 02:00 | Last updated: November 4 2004 02:00

After Salzburg, Brussels, Barcelona, Toulouse and several showings on TV, Christophe Marthaler's Kát'a Kabanova has at last turned up in Paris. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after all this exposure, it got a lukewarm reception on the first night. Even the booing for the production team was tepid.

In the six years since it was unveiled in Salzburg, the staging has become a modern classic. Parisians like their grunge with a chic veneer - Graham Vick's Peter Grimes was a good example - but Marthaler and his designer Anna Viebrock transpose the action to the 1960s and serve it up warts and all.

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