Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, London Coliseum

To call Dmitri Shostakovich’s relationship with the Soviet government rocky would be an understatement. His Symphony No. 5 (1937) and Symphony No. 7 (1941) made him the most feted composer in the realm, and late in life he joined the communist party to become head of the Composer’s Union; on the other hand, he was officially denounced twice, once soon after the success of the symphonies above. The opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1932) was the cause of the first. An article in Pravda called it “coarse, primitive and vulgar, and it was banned in the Soviet Union for almost three decades.

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Now, the English National Opera are giving London audiences a chance to see what all the fuss was about. Lady Macbeth is a grimy verismo tale of Tsarist Russia. Although its protagonist, Katerina, is every bit as murderous as her appellation applies, she is far from a power-hungry tyrant; rather, she is undone by the lust and mistreatment of the men around her. It is a tale of huge intimacy and emotional power, as sordidly domestic as Puccini with none of the deflating melodrama. The score, as one might expect from Shostakovich, combines lush romanticism with a piercing expressionist bent, conjuring up a nocturnal world of doomed assignments. It is undoubtedly the composer’s operatic masterpiece.
The cast is headed up by glittering American soprano Patricia Racette, with John Danzak and Peter Hoare playing the men in Katerina’s life. Mark Wigglesworth, the ENO’s new music director, will conduct his first production in the role. Given his reputation as “the finest Shostakovich interpreter of his generation” (BBC Music Magazine), he’s unlikely to miss a beat. Dmitri Tcherniakov, famed for his productions of opera from his native Russia, will direct. He has been called “hugely exciting” by The Guardian’s Tom Service, and “an artist … on the edge of the cutting edge” by Opera News. Expect the unexpected.