Abstract Although Leos Janacek’s sixth opera, Kat’a Kabanova (Brno, 1921), had some success in Czechoslovakia during the ‘20s and ‘30s, and three German productions in the pre-Nazi era, it had to wait until after World War II before it began to be heard in the West. After Munich and Zurich, London heard it for the first time in April 1951. It had for the most part an unfavorable reception, both public and critical. The spirited defense of the opera given below appeared that autumn in The Music Review. In the course of rebutting some of the critics’ objections, its author, Charles Stuart, succeeds in providing an excellent analytical introduction to what many consider one of the operatic masterpieces of the twentieth century.