Lady plays the blues
By Juliet Schoen/Special to The Malibu Times
A lot of fuss has been made about the fact that the Moscow sets for Shostakovich’s “Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk” arrived here by boat during the dock strike and could not be unloaded. There was no way to get them back to the Los Angeles Opera Company in time for the scheduled opening. Fortunately, the crafty carpenters of the Los Angeles Opera were able to recreate the set from plans flown over from Russia. And wonderful they were!
Wooden slats made up a barn-like house that could be changed magically to fit the many scenes in this three- and-a-half hour opera. Everything worked to heighten the intensity of this dark story of a merchant’s wife who poisons her father-in-law and kills her husband in order to be with her lusty lover. Huge gates, which are opened and closed by soldiers as the scenes change, are symbolic of the closed society in Russia during the days before the “new ideology.” The servants are enslaved by the master, as is the merchant’s wife.
Although there are undertones of irony and even mockery in the story and the music, the drama is a compelling one, enhanced by the raucous Shostakovich score. The redoubtable Valery Gergiev led the Kirov Opera’s orchestra and chorus for the first five performances, followed by Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, for the last two. All in all, almost 300 Kirov artists, musicians, technicians and administrators arrived for the seven-day marathon.
The major roles, and many minor ones, were taken by three singers in rotation. The second performance had a stellar cast, with the main characters played magnificently by excellent singers who fit their parts admirably. The wistful Irina Loskutova, with Yuri Marusin as her handsome lover, sang Katerina, the lady of the title. Significant others were Sergei Alexashkin as the father-in-law, Leonid Zakhozhaev as the cuckolded husband and Mikhail Petrenko as the priest.
This is not an opera with hummable arias but the music, sometimes loud enough to rival an Angels’ game, used the instrumentation in a way that made the experience unique and exciting. From Russia, with love.