MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The gala crowd at Milan\u2019s Teatro alla Scala cheered the season premiere of Dmitry Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth of Mtsensk\u2019\u2019 with a 12-minute standing ovation Sunday, as the storied theater synonymous with the Italian repertoire opened with a Russian melodrama for the second time since Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
The crowd of luminaries fully embraced stage director Vasily Barkhatov\u2019s bold telling of merchant wife Katerina Izmajilova\u2019s fall into a murderous love triangle against the backdrop of Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union, right up to the jarring final scene with a Soviet truck barreling into a wedding party, and two characters perishing in a burst of flames. <\/p>\n
U.S. soprano Sara Jakubiak was showered with carnations and cheers for her portrayal of Katarina, the title character, over the 2-hour, 40-minute opera, and the audience cheered its appreciation for conductor Riccardo Chailly, making his last Dec. 7 gala premiere appearance as music director. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo one ever expects this,\u2019\u2019 Jakubiak said backstage of the enthusiastic reception. \u201dI am just so happy.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
From \u2018Boris Godunov\u2019 to \u2018Lady Macbeth\u2019<\/p>\n
Three years after the 2022 gala season premier of \u201cBoris Godunov\u201d drew protests from the Ukrainian community for highlighting Russian culture in the wake of Moscow\u2019s invasion, the premiere of \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d inspired a flash mob demonstrating for peace. <\/p>\n
Shostakovich\u2019s 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union, and it was blacklisted just days after Stalin saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.<\/p>\n
A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration, removed from the La Scala hubbub, that aimed \u201cto draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by [President Vladimir] Putin\u2019s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
A larger demonstration of several dozen people in front of City Hall called for freedom for the Palestinians and an end to colonialism, but was kept far from arriving dignitaries by a police cordon. Demonstrations against war and other forms of inequality have long countered the glitz of the gala season premiere that draws leading figures from culture, business and politics dressed in their finest frocks. <\/p>\n
Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli was joined by the senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in the royal box. Italian pop stars Mahmoud and Achille Lauro were also among those in attendance. <\/p>\n
Shostakovich\u2019s journey to La Scala premiere<\/p>\n
Chailly began working with Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the success \u201cBoris Godunov,\u2019\u2019 which was attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom said they separated Russia\u2019s politics from its culture.<\/p>\n
Outside the \u201cGodunov\u201d premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture amid a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture.<\/p>\n
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d at La Scala for just the fourth time \u201ca must.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,\u2019\u2019 he said at a news conference last month. <\/p>\n
La Scala\u2019s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d and Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cBoris Godunov\u201d at the theater whose history is tied to the Italian repertoire. <\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,\u2019\u2019 Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. \u201cShostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin\u2019s own.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
American soprano makes her La Scala debut<\/p>\n
Jakubiak, 47, made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she self-immolated to kill herself and her treacherous second husband\u2019s new lover \u2014 deviating from the original story\u2019s drowning. It\u2019s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich\u2019s Katerina is full of challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I\u2019m a murderess, that I\u2019m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,\u2019\u2019 Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. \u201cYou go, \u2018Oh, my gosh, how will I do this?\u2019 But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we\u2019re just going to go for the ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was \u201csqueezing\u201d Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever I prepare a role, it\u2019s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,\u201d she said. \u201cFirst, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano, and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we\u2019re actually somewhat similar in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony. <\/p>\n
Stage direction highlights Stalin\u2019s end<\/p>\n
Barkhatov, who at 42 has a flourishing international career, said \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d is a \u201cvery brave and exciting\u201d choice for La Scala\u2019s season opening. <\/p>\n
Barkhatov\u2019s stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin\u2019s rule, rather than a 19th century rural village as written for the 1930s premiere.<\/p>\n
For Barkhatov, Stalin\u2019s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a dark restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place \u2014 all grim and dingy. <\/p>\n
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as \u201ca weird \u2026 breakthrough to happiness and freedom.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,\u2019\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
Barry writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The gala crowd at Milan\u2019s Teatro alla Scala cheered the season premiere of Dmitry Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":432486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[200736,200740,1582,276,200742,19919,200734,200735,2961,200737,200738,224,5337,18278,200741,18281,17519,257,200739,200733],"class_list":{"0":"post-432485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-barkhatov","9":"tag-boris-godunov","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-chailly","13":"tag-character","14":"tag-dmitry-shostakovich","15":"tag-jakubiak","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-scala-hubbub","18":"tag-lady-macbeth","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-opera","22":"tag-original-story","23":"tag-performance","24":"tag-premiere","25":"tag-russia","26":"tag-russian-culture","27":"tag-stalin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115682055628401229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}