★★★★☆
In a decaying Siberian prison, a group of convicts count out their days in petty fights and hard labour. Walls and shackles confine them; crime and punishment have stopped their lives. Reality hangs as heavy as chains. Memories are an escape and a curse.
This is From the House of the Dead, Janácek’s final opera, based on Dostoevsky’s account of incarceration. Welsh National Opera has revived David Pountney’s 1982 production for its Russian Revolution season and it holds up pretty well. Plus, the conductor Tomás Hanus’s sweeping performance offers something new: the original version of the score. Janácek died before he could polish the opera. Others did that for him. Fresh research allows us to hear the notes as he left them, unadorned.