Presto Recording of the Week
23rd February 2024

Gramophone Magazine
March 2024
Recording of the Month

Amanda Majeski (Katya), Katarina Dalayman (Kabanicha), Simon O'Neill (Boris), Andrew Staples (Tichon), Magdalena Kozená (Varvara), Ladislav Elgr (Kudrjas), Pavlo Hunka (Dikój)

London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle

The second release in LSO Live’s cycle of Janáček opera recordings, Katya Kabanova tells a story of love, entrapment and, ultimately, tragedy. The album’s cast includes the superb tenor Simon O’Neill and, appearing in one of her signature roles as seen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Amanda Majeski as Katya.

“Majeski gives such heartfelt commitment to the role of Katya that one worries how she can come back down from the emotional peaks and precipices that she scales.” – Opera Today

Katya is young, sensitive, and desperate for love. But trapped in a remote country village with a bored husband and his snobbish family, she has no way out, until a summer thunderstorm changes everything. Uncompromisingly honest, and pulsing with intensely human emotion, the story of Katya Kabanova is written in music that cuts straight to the chase. The LSO’s concert stagings of classic operas always make headlines: and this one was no different. Enjoy this recording, captured live at the Barbican in January 2023 under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.

"The LSO are on tremendous form throughout, and what follows is an unflinching journey into both beauty and darkness, as sensuousness repeatedly collides with incipient violence." - Gramophone Magazine, March 2024