In a Russian town on the Volga, the teacher Váňa admires a view of the river. Such poetic musings don’t register with two of Váňa’s neighbors, the merchant Dikój, whose name means “wild beast” and his nephew Boris. Dikoj is infuriated by Boris’s urbane style, and asks the servant, Glascha, about the whereabouts of the stern matriarch Kabanicha, with whom he has an ambiguous relationship. When he learns that she is not at home, he storms off, leaving Boris alone with his friend Váňa to explain his tolerance of Dikoj’s bullying. It all comes down to money. Dikoj controls Boris’s inheritance, so Boris is obliged to tolerate Dikoj’s relentless abuse.

Observing the Kabanovs’ return from Vespers, Boris reveals to Váňa his unspoken love for Kátya, wife of the much older Tichon, the Kabanicha’s downtrodden son.  Vanya warns him about interfering in such a highly repressive household, and the two men run off. Kabanicha berates Tichon for his lack of attentiveness. He and Kátya attempt to placate her.  Later, when Tichon complains about his mother’s treatment of his wife, Varvara, the Kabanicha’s young ward, is less than sympathetic, asserting that Tichon would rather drink away his troubles than defend his wife.

Recounting happy childhood memories to Varvara, Kátya admits that of late she has experienced strange and disturbing erotic fantasies. Before she can say more, Tichon interrupts to take his leave on a business trip, and Kátya — sensing her own vulnerability — begs him not to go, or to bring her along. He declines and leaves, reminding his wife to treat Kabanicha with respect.

Kabanicha criticizes Kátya for not demonstrating her grief over Tichon’s absence more visibly. When she leaves, Varvara tells Kátya that she has plans to meet her boyfriend Vǎná, and hints that Kátya might do likewise. Kátya, overwhelmed by her domestic frustrations and her sense of fate’s inevitability, decides to meet Boris. When he arrives with his friend Váňa and declares his love, Kátya surrenders to him despite deep misgivings. Meanwhile Dikoj, patently drunk, arrives to visit Kabanicha and urges her to beat him for his sins. At the climax of the love scene between Boris and Kátya, we see Varvara and Váňa together on the river bank, and Varvara is talking about the unsavory relations between Dikoj and Kabanicha. At the center-point of the opera, three couples are present: the passionate and illicitly romantic, the care-free and easy-going youth and the perverse elders.

Ten days have passed. Váňa and a friend walk along the river. A sudden storm arrives and they take shelter in a ruined building decorated with frescoes of hell and damnation.  Váňa tries to explain to Dikoj that lightning is an electrical phenomenon, but Dikoj insists that it is the wrath of God. Varvara tells Boris that she is alarmed by Kátya’s hysterical frame of mind now that Tichon has returned. When Kátya and Tichon arrive with Kabanicha, Kátya is clearly agitated. The weather has again turned violent, and in Kátya’s mind it is a sign from God of her guilt.  As the storm breaks loose she confesses that during Tichon’s absence she spent her nights with Boris.

That evening, as Tichon searches for Kátya, Varvara and Váňa decide to seek a different future in Moscow. Kátya returns in despair, believing she has dishonored herself and Boris. After a last embrace with him, she is bewildered and can see no possibility for her own future. She throws herself into the Volga. Tichon reviles Kabanicha for Kátya’s fate, but Kabanicha, disciplined and controlled to the end, merely thanks the people for their help in recovering Katya’s corpse.