# 20th Century Operatic Masterpieces: Part Six - Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

20th Century Operatic Masterpieces: Part Six - Shostakovich's _Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk_





























Shostakovich loved the title character of Nikolai Leskov's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District perhaps not wisely but too well. In writing the libretto based on Leskov's naturalistic short story with Leningrad playwright Alexander Preis, Shostakovich loved the character of Katerina Izmaylova so deeply that he could not bear to see her as Lady Macbeth, that is, as a wanton murderer who kills her father-in-law, her husband, and her husband's nephew out of boredom and lust. Instead, Shostakovich changed her from a sex-crazed fury into a heroic victim of her time and place.

Shostakovich did everything he could in fashioning Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District to make Katerina sympathetic. He not only gave her ravishingly gorgeous arias, he gave all the other characters stilted and silly arias, transforming them from characters to caricatures. He changed the plot of the story to make her more sympathetic: among other things, he eliminated the death of the child and made Katerina's lover Sergei much more of an instigator of the crimes than he was in Leskov's story. He even gave Katerina two deeply moving arias in the fourth and final act in which she sings of her love, her guilt, and her remorse. In sum, Shostakovich deliberately and purposefully altered the story to fit with his conception of love.

Yes, love. Although the subsequent history of Lady Macbeth -- its tremendous popular success (it was playing in both Leningrad and Moscow simultaneously), its terrible denouncement on the front page of Pravda as "Muddle instead of Music," its withdrawal from the stage until the early 1960s -- can and must be seen in political and ideological terms, Shostakovich himself seems to have imagined the opera as a work about love. While Shostakovich was composing Lady Macbeth from May 1930 through December 1932, he was deeply in love with Nina Vazar, whom he married in May 1932. As he wrote years later, "I dedicated Lady Macbeth to my bride, my future wife, so naturally the opera is about love, too, but not only love. It's also about how love could have been if the world weren't full of vile things."

There are vile things throughout the score: the awful Offenbach-style galops, the lurid music for the bestial father-in-law, the weak music for the husband, the satiric music for the police and the priests, the grinding organ interlude, the garish orchestral colors, the merciless rhythms. the hideous harmonies. But it is also filled with Shostakovich's compassionate love for Katerina in her achingly beautiful music. If Shostakovich's love for Katerina prevented him from creating an opera which was a faithful adaptation of Leskov's story or from creating an opera which would be acceptable to the cruel society in which he lived, it did enable him to create a work which can move an audience to tears.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

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What a maniacal opera, but absolutely thrilling from start to finish. I remember the first time I heard this opera, I thought it was a clever blend of Berg's _Wozzeck_ with an even more militant and sardonic edge to it. If I were to choose a performance that I think captures the nervous energy of the opera, it would be Rostropovich on EMI. There are two versions of the opera: one is a revision called _Katerina Izmailova_ that is toned quite a bit, but the original version of the opera is the way to go. What do you guys think of this opera?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I saw the recording made in Amsterdam ( Westbroek) never to forget experience , bought the DVD even, alas seldom do I have the urge watching again.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> I saw the recording made in Amsterdam ( Westbroek) never to forget experience , bought the DVD even, alas seldom do I have the urge watching again.


Hmmm...I seldom have the urge to watch opera. I'd rather just listen and sometimes I'll follow along with the libretto. I image _Lady Macbeth_ being quite the spectacle to behold in concert.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

together with Weinberg's equally harrowing _The Passenger, _this is the summit of Soviet opera and certainly one of Shostakovich's greatest works. While I was lucky enough to see a very good production locally a while back, I'd certainly agree that Rostropovich remains the benchmark among recordings.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

To me, the sad thing about Lady Macbeth's censure by Stalin and his cronies was that Shostakovich wouldn't try anything similar again, at least not as ambitious as this. The harsh satire, black humor and cynical irony described in the OP here were central parts of his artistic personality. He understood as well as any artist I know how to contrast beauty with ugliness and thereby make it more meaningful.


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