You could imagine it as a sort of perverse old-time riddle. What could it be that's younger and leaner, and not in Italian, that could topple Aida from the top of the tree in an Opera Ireland season? In the new world that artistic director Dieter Kaegi is marking out for Opera Ireland, it's Janacek's Katya Kabanova, starring Janice Meyerson and Gerald O'Connor (right), opening at the Gaiety Theatre tomorrow night.
In the 1920s, when he was approaching 70, Janacek completed four major operas. He was in love, smitten by a married woman 38 years younger than him. Katya, based on Ostrovsky's The Storm, contains clear elements of wish-fulfilment - a married woman choosing to have an affair in her husband's absence.
For Janacek, his operatic character was "a woman so gentle by nature . . . a breeze would carry her away, let alone the storm that breaks over her". Unusually, for Opera Ireland, the title role is taken by an Irish singer, Franzita Whelan.
