Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (2019)

Music

Of Shostakovich’s initial undertaking – a trilogy on the tragic destinies of Russian women through the ages – only one opera was ever written: the hard-hitting Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Although one of the mainsprings of the work, the Shakespearean parallel is here bitterly ironic: unlike Lady Macbeth, Katerina Ismaïlova who, in the remote reaches of rural 19th century Russia, falls in love with one of her husband’s employees and is finally forced to commit suicide, is less a manipulator than a victim of a violent and patriarchal society. Krzysztof Warlikowski liberates all the subversive power of this scorching and scandalous work, which marked the early years of the Opéra Bastille.

Casts

	Aušrinė Stundytė as Katerina Lvovna Ismailova
	Pavel Cernoch as Serguei
	Dmitry Ulyanov as Boris Timofeevich Ismailov
	Sofija Petrovic as Aksinya
	John Daszak as Zinovy Borisovich Ismailov
	Krzysztof Baczyk as A priest
	Oksana Volkova as Sonyetka
	Ingo Metzmacher as Conductor

Crew