Lady Macbeth

This opera is a study in the psychopathology of everyday life. It exposes the kind of brutal manners familiar in naturalistic novels after the Goncourts and Zola, but Shostakovich had the misfortune of running afoul of the official Soviet position that criminality and pathology couldn't exist in the workers' paradise. Maria Ewing's strength isn't pure vocalism; anyone can find fault on technical grounds. But she is a passionate, involving actress with her voice, and she makes our anti-heroine chillingly desperate and driven–every moment is haunted. The supporting cast joins in with a broadly vicious portrayal of a spider's den passing for normal home life.

At first glance, the title of Shostakovich’s opera seems to speak for itself: Katherina, neglected and unhappy in her marriage, commits the most heinous crime just like the Shakespearian Lady Macbeth. But Nikolai Leskov’s short novel, which portrays Katherina as a monster, was only the starting point for Shostakovich to elicit understanding for an oppressed woman whose pursuit for self-determination is suppressed by society. Through combining satiric, grotesque and tragic elements in his music, Shostakovich succeeds in striking the balance between repulsion at Katherina’s immoral acts and sympathy for her. Violence, eroticism and the paralysing boredom of Russian society in the 19th century are the founding elements of this composition.