Janacek’s, Katya Kabanova at the Edinburgh Festival theatre last night was a wealth of surprise. It’s a sombre tale of dysfunctional family, a failing society and, I thought, mental illness – with wonderful music.

LAURA WILDE’S, Katya conveyed all the bewilderment of the person not coping. Her inner life is on a diffrent plane to the rest of the world and that initially attracts, but ultimately, at least where her husband and her lover are concerned, frustrates. Only the foster daughter of the family, Varvara, dramatically realised by Polish mezzo-soprano HANNA HIPP, fights Katya’s corner with passion and releases her, for a while, from the prison of the family house.

Sex may have been invented in the sixties, but there was a lot of it in Janacek’s fictional world. Hypocritical among the oldies, exuberant and life-affirming for Varvar and Vanya and fatal for Katya. The modernity of Janacek’s vision is breath-taking.

Catch it at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Saturday 23rd March.