Opera review: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk - Royal Opera House
Clive Barda John Daszak and the Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek
This Royal Opera House production is even better. In fact I have rarely if ever experienced such a stunningly good evening at the opera. Shostakovich was already established as the finest young composer in the USSR when he wrote Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk but it was nearly his undoing. After initial success, it all came unstuck when Stalin himself came to see it. Some say Stalin thoroughly disapproved of the bourgeois story line and its obvious disdain for the authorities; others say it was simply that Stalin was sitting too close to the drums and trombones and found it too loud and brash.
Clive Barda 'Every character in the story is evil'
Whatever the reason, a piece appeared in the Russian newspaper Pravda the following day which may even have been written by Stalin himself, thoroughly critical of the piece. Shostakovich lived in fear of arrest for a long time after and was effectively unable to continue his career until, rather brilliantly, he embraced a critic’s view of his fifth symphony as “a creative artist’s reply to just criticism”. After that, Stalin accepted his apology and his career resumed. He even rewrote Lady Macbeth as “Katerina Ismailova” but it is the early version that the ROH wisely chose to perform.
It is, as Stalin probably thought, loud and brash, but brilliantly so. The plot is set in a factory where the owners abuse the men and the men abuse the women. Katerina Ismailova is married to the boss and lusted after by his father. Every character in the story is evil, not least Katerina who has an affair, murders her husband, has another worker killed when he finds out, and, just like Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, is the real main character in the drama, responsible for all the evils that happen to everyone else. The title role is superbly played by Dutch soprano Eva-Marie Westbroek, who both sings and acts compellingly.