Jonathan Miller’s staging of Jan’s Kát’a Kabanová at the Metropolitan Opera was ghastly in 1991; revived in 1999, it seems even less excusable. Miller has the reverse of the Midas touch, dependably turning what he touches into dross. I have bemoaned his Pelléas (see “Dumbing down Debussy” in the May 1995 New Criterion); his Kát’a is no less appalling. His current highly-praised Met Nozze di Figaro may be a shade more circumspect, but surely does not deserve the critical raves it has garnered. Though mostly well sung and decently played, directorially this Kát’a is as effective a bomb as any anarchist ever detonated.

The primal disaster is the décor of Robert Israel, obviously worked out in cahoots with the director. The parallel love scene for the Kát’a-Boris and Varvara-Kudrjas’ couples should be set in a ravine behind the Kabano ...

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