"With Jenufa at the Coliseum and Katya Kabanova in Hackney, Londoners have been enjoying the chance to compare what Janácek's friend Max Brod called the “budding flower” and the “ripe fruit” of his operatic output. Katya, the harvest of the composer's 66th year, has been chosen to celebrate English Touring Opera's 30th birthday and, with Michael Rosewell in the pit, it resonates with all the rapture, anguish and verdant life of Janácek's score", reports Hilary Finch in The Times with four-star rating.

"A cobwebby cross-etching of shadows forms the backdrop to the earthy browns, greys and slate-blues of Adam Wiltshire's period costumes. And in James Conway's quiet yet intense staging, the villagers ebb and flow like the waters of the river in which Katya will drown herself. The body language of this production is its great strength. You can feel the ache within Katya, sung with impassioned radiance by Linda Richardson: the voice can certainly spread its wings, even if the yearning body cannot fly. Jane Harrington's free-spirited Varvara sings in a soprano glowing with sensuousness and sympathy.

The three tenors in their lives are sharply drawn: Michael Bracegirdle's forthright Kuryash, a real match for his Varvara; Colin Judson a tormented and more than usually sympathetic Tichon; and Katya's beloved Boris, not yet totally invigorated, but ardently sung by Richard Roberts. The dark sterility of superstition and moral rectitude is embodied in the gimlet-eyed Kabanicha of Fiona Kimm and the monstrous presence of Sion Goronwy's Dikoy.