History must find your place when Joseph Stalin scathingly reviews your opera in Pravda.
was such a case Dmitry ShostakovichHer Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk certainly has its place in the history books, not only as a classic contemporary opera, but as an infamous moment in the history of opera. In 1934, it was the toast of Leningrad (then called St. Petersburg) and then set off on a nearly two-year tour of the Soviet Union. However, after Stalin, who attended a performance in Moscow in January 1936, wanted to see what the fuss was about, the song became a reviled song.
In a review in Pravda, the Communist Party’s official newspaper at the time, the Soviet leader called it “an ugly flood of confused, confusing sounds instead of music” and “a pandemonium of creaks, screams and clashes.” Opera had been banned in the Soviet Union for decades, and Shostakovich feared arrest. In 1962 it returned to the Russian stage in a revised version under Nikita S. Khrushchev (now Shostakovich’s original opera is the standard).
“Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” returns after eight years. Metropolitan Opera on September 29 (six performances through October 21), the timing suddenly feels urgent against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The production, which premiered in 1994, was initially directed by Graham Vick, who died in 2021, with sets and costumes handled by Paul Brown in his vague 1950s setting. For some, the opera is not only a testament to a composer’s patriotism, but also a testament to his contempt for the ruling party, all dissonant and unsettling music, and a quest for desire, violence, truth and freedom. It is wrapped in a raw depiction of the struggle of
“I think all the notes he wrote were about him and how he saw the world he lived in. In that context, ‘Lady Macbeth’ is an absolutely influential work. 1988, with Ben Kingsley as Shostakovich. “Most Russians instinctively know that Shostakovich is their mouthpiece, and that says a lot about the power of his music, which is why it always resonates, especially at this moment. “
The resonance is especially strong for conductors. Kelly Lynn WilsonHe made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with this work.
Referring to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, Wilson said, “It’s similar to how Putin is now trying to destroy artistic expression in the same way Stalin did.” “To me, this opera feels like a direct insult to it, so this is a vehicle for communicating the incredible anger I have towards Putin.”
A Canadian with Ukrainian roots, Wilson has spent the last few months conducting and organizing the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, conceived this spring, with her husband, Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera. They helped arrange Ukrainian musicians, dates and funding for a tour across Europe (and Washington and New York) with the support of the Ukrainian government. A natural segue, she said.
“I have cousins who fight. They write to me and thank me for what I do with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra,” Wilson said. “For me it’s a sense of doing justice to show Putin that you can really play Russian music while screaming.”
Anger is the theme of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”. Based on the novella “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” by Nikolai Leskov, it tells the story of Katerina, a woman who has fallen into a loveless marriage and falls in love with a village worker, Sergei. The depiction of their love affair in the opera is highly sexualized, and after two maniacal murders go awry, the lovers are exiled to a Siberian labor camp, where Sergei is forced to live in his new home. get a lover The tragic ending on the frozen river has some of Shostakovich’s most jarring and charming music. It was a huge success—for a short spell.
“What many people don’t realize is that there was an 18-month gap between the opening day of this opera and the day Stalin went to see it,” Palmer said. “There were more operas performed in Russia during these eighteen months than by Wagner, Puccini and Verdi.”
Despite fearing Stalin’s post-review backlash, Shostakovich remained incredibly prolific. In 1937 he published his 5th Symphony. The symphony was a triumph for both Communist Party officials, who saw him as a composer honoring the roots of Russian classical music, and Russian cultural intellectuals, who saw him as a requiem for Russian culture. great purgewhich Stalin unleashed the previous year.
“Shostakovich put everything he advocated as a person and as a composer into Lady Macbeth, but his genius is that he found a way to compromise and then exist in that world.” Kirill KarabitzBorn in Ukraine, he is the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England. “He wanted to stay true to himself, but he wanted to write in a way that would satisfy the authorities.”
“His music after ‘Lady Macbeth’ is different because it has so many layers,” he added. “He hid his criticism. Is his finale a happy ending or a happy ending due to struggle?”
for Russian soprano Svetlana Sozdaterevawhich made her Metropolitan Opera debut in a role she sang several times in Europe, the opera represents what Shostakovich intended as an artist and a human being: the power of love and betrayal.
“The most important thing for me is the theme of all-encompassing and powerful love, how important it was for Shostakovich to express such deep feelings and create such a complex character. said Sozdatereva. “Her remarkable thing is that by the end of her opera she has become a murderer, but her audience sympathizes with her.”
Shostakovich’s understanding of the heroine, and his own reality during the Stalinist era, informs opera’s difficult history. Not to mention the legacy of bold art full of messages and even notes that have yet to be deciphered.
“If you wrote a one-verse poem ‘Stalin was a villain,’ you were dead,” said Palmer, director of Shostakovich films. “But if you wrote a tough song saying that, it would have been much harder to prove.”