Opera's power and passion shared around the world

Using video has allowed set designer Genevieve Blanchett to blur the boundaries between artifice and reality in Katya Kabanova.

A Russian town on the shores of the Volga River in 1860 and a Pacific Northwestern town in 1950s America aren't as far apart as we may assume, says designer Genevieve Blanchett.

Blanchett is one of a quartet of creatives bringing New Zealand Opera's final production of 2017, Katya Kabanova, to Auckland and Wellington. She, director Patrick Nolan and lighting designer Mark Howett shifted the story from 1860s Russia to 1950s US when they were commissioned by Seattle Opera to make a new version of Czech composer Leo Janacek's 1921 work.

Described as a powerful emotional tragedy, Katya is caught in a loveless marriage and dominated by her overbearing mother-in-law. Happiness and peace continue to elude her even when she finds true love with another man.

Blanchett, sister of actress Cate, says the move was an easy and natural translation because there are many parallels between the social structures and norms of both periods, particularly regarding women's lives.

"Both are characterised by a dominance of conservative and religious beliefs that strictly defined women's roles inside and outside marriage, and placed enormous emphasis on a traditional and dynastic family unit," she says. "Both countries/periods were also emerging from the murky shadows of war and we found the economic caste system and unbridled nationalism that began to take shape in post-war USA to be an apt parallel of the social hierarchies, divides and prejudices of 1860s Russia."

In NZ, Blanchett, Nolan and Howett are joined by conductor Wyn Davies and a new cast, singing in Czech with English surtitles. They'll be accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

It's a mainly Kiwi cast, with three internationals: Russian-American soprano Dina Kuznetsova in the title role; Australian-born tenor Angus Wood plays Katya's lover, Boris, and Australian mezzo-soprano Hayley Sugars as the young girl Varvara.

Katya Kabanova has shifted from 1860s Russia to 1950s America and has a filmic quality about it.

Blanchett has crafted the look of the production to explore tension between a repressive domestic world and the majestic natural environment that surrounds the characters.

Using video allowed her to create a massive and fluid canvas, to play with dramatic shifts in scale that echo internal shifts within the characters. She likes that it also allows juxtaposition with physical set elements, playing with ideas about artifice and reality.

"It enables us to create a sense of domestic hyper-reality appropriate to the 1950s and when the story shifts into the more expressive scenes in nature, the video responds by bathing the stage in images that show power, the natural world and the vulnerability and fragility of the characters ... "

But more than anything it's about the music. Having now worked on three operas - NZ Opera's 2009 Eugene Onegin was her first followed by Notes from Underground for Sydney Chamber Opera - Blanchett has greater insight into the role the score plays.

She describes it as an early-stage tool in creating a framework for a design concept and provides the map as to where the emotion and subtext lie.

"I've also learned how to make peace with the fact that time operates very differently in opera than it does in drama," she says. "A simple sentence, or plot point, can take a long time to land, plus conductors bring their own interpretation of tempo. All this requires a subtle but significantly different approach to how space is conceived of and used.

"What I've come to appreciate about the art form is the powerful and visceral emotional reactions that can be generated by the combination of music and language - there's nothing like it."

Lowdown:
What: New Zealand Opera - Katya Kabanova
Where and when: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, September 16-23; St James Theatre, Wellington, October 7-14