Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Act Four - u3asites.org.uk

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Act Four

© 2021 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

2 Recap Acts One, Two, and Three 4 Act Four: Change of tone – enter Mussorgsky 6 Outline Act Four / Scene Nine 8 Act Four: Minor deviations from Leskov 9 Act Four: Music comments 10 SCENE NINE – libretto 20 Alternative final chorus

21 Reaction to Lady Macbeth 22 Reaction: Creative collaborators 24 Reaction: Soviet musicologists and composers 26 Reaction: Composers Abroad 30 Stalin goes to the opera 32 Muddle instead of music – Pravda, 28 January 1936 35 What does Muddle instead of music mean? 37 Leftist deviation and Meyerhold 39 Stalin confirms the meaning of Muddle? 41 Appendix:

Сумбур вместо музыки / Muddle instead of music

Soviet Music: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Session 4


Recap Acts One, Two, and Three Let’s start with a recap of what has happened in the first three acts of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

Katerina is bored. Neglected by her husband, Zinovy – a wealthy flour merchant. Zinovy needs to go away for a while, to sort out a problem at one of his mills. Katerina starts an affair with newly hired worker – Sergei. Boris – Katerina’s father-in-law, finds out about the affair.

Katerina resolves this problem by putting rat poison in his supper. Zinovy returns home at an inopportune moment – Katerina and Sergei are in bed together.

Another problem – another death. Katerina and Sergei marry. On their wedding day one of their workers stumbles on Zinovy’s body, hidden in a cellar. He runs to the police. Katerina and Sergei are arrested at their wedding reception.



Recap Acts One, Two, and Three /2 In his first publicity article about Lady Macbeth, in October 1932, Shostakovich commented:

I would say that Lady Macbeth could be called a tragi-satirical opera. This clearly struck a chord for the editor – who titled the article Tragediya—satira.

[Sovetskoye iskusstvo (16 Oct 1932), quoted Fay p 69]

So far the opera has been heavy on the satire.

Tragedy? Boris and Zinovy are dead

but no one’s mourning them… as I suggested last session, they are class enemies. Musically, the style has been heterogeneous.

At times almost a collage. Sometimes underlining a point

like when Boris briefly channels Baron Ochs. Sometimes subverting the action

like when Zinovy’s killing is accompanied with a trite gallop.



Act Four: Change of tone – enter Mussorgsky Act Four marks a change of tone…

this is where Tragedy kicks in.

Biographer Krzysztof Meyer says [in the final act of Lady Macbeth] for the first time he expresses the note of pessimism that will later dominate his work for many years.

[Meyer p 170]

Musically, Act Four is much more homogeneous than the previous acts and is clearly modelled on Mussorgsky. Like a Mussorgsky history opera there is a central role for the chorus.

The “Russian people” are constantly present and the action moves periodically from the crowd into the foreground, then back.

This is recognisably the style of Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov.

I suggest the Kromy scene from Boris Godunov is the most important precursor for Lady Macbeth Act Four.

Party ideologues loved the Kromy Scene. The People stir – and demand Revolutionary Justice! Marina Frolova Walker suggests the Kromy Scene is the element that guaranteed Boris Godunov an honourable place in the Soviet repertoire throughout the Stalin era.

[MFW Nat p 201]



Act Four: Change of tone – enter Mussorgsky /2

Quick reminder of Boris Godunov Kromy Scene… First the crowd taunts Khrushchov – a nobleman who supported Boris. The Simpleton appears – and is teased by children. Vagrant friars tell of the chaos…

Boris’s people are scouring the land and torturing the innocent. Then the first wave of pretender Dmitri supporters arrives. Ironically these supporters are opportunist Jesuits,

so now the crowd plans to lynch Khrushchov and the Jesuits. Dmitri enters on his horse – turns the crowd around to save Khrushchov. Everyone marches on Moscow. The Simpleton remains, lamenting Russia’s fate.

YouTube link to a performance of the Kromy scene from Boris Godonov

Kirov Opera, conducted Valery Gergiev, directed Andrei Tarkovsky

https://youtu.be/aUiE2c5P0zI?t=5200

The two elements of Mussorgsky that particularly echo in Shostakovich, for me, are:

The ugliness of the lynch mob. The lament for Russia’s fate.

https://youtu.be/aUiE2c5P0zI?t=5200



Outline Act Four / Scene Nine Act Four is a long single scene.

Katerina and Sergei are being marched to Siberia. The scene is book-ended by convicts singing about the endless miles of walking. Stage directions:

late autumn – evening on a steep bank convicts are in an overnight camp. Men separated from women.

Katerina bribes a guard to see Sergei.

The tune for her greeting to Sergei… Seryozha, my dearest! At last! … I haven’t seen you all day!

is reused prominently in the Eighth and Fourteenth String Quartets Sergei is dismissive of Katerina – she’s ruined his life. Katerina laments her position;

the end of home comforts, and the breakdown of her relationship with Sergei. Sergei has a new romantic interest – Sonyetka a young woman convict.

Sonyetka puts a price on love; some stockings, just like Katerina’s.



Outline Act Four / Scene Nine /2 Sergei approaches Katerina.

Says he’ll have to go to hospital to recover from the forced march. Rather than be separated from him, Katerina offers her stockings for his ailing legs.

Moments later Katerina sees the stockings passed to Sonyetka.

Her fellow women prisoners tease her mercilessly. Katerina sings another aria of despair. Sergei and Sonyetka return to the stage, after making love.

Sergei tells us they have just been to paradise. Sonyetka mocks Katerina I’ve got your man, and my feet are warm.

The forced march is about to resume.

Katerina sidles up to Sonyetka, grasps her, and then throws herself and Sonyetka into the river.

The guard sighs… the current is too strong to save them. They both drown.

The convicts walk off – singing about the endless miles…



Act Four: Minor deviations from Leskov How does this action compare to Leskov? There’s a telescoping of time…

These events take place on the march from Nizhni Novgorod to Kazan, a distance of 400 km.

The suicide / drowning takes place in the Volga. Leskov has two new convict partners for Sergei.

In addition to seventeen year old Sonyetka, there is also Fiona – beautiful, mature, a soldier’s wife, who will sleep with anyone:

“such women are highly prized in robber bands, gangs of convicts, and in the Petersburg social-democratic communes”.

[Later the Bolsheviks started as the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party…]

Preis and Shostakovich simplified that aspect of the story … they also omitted a shameful aspect of Sergei’s behaviour.

When Katerina sees Sonyetka wearing her stocking, she turns green and trembles all over. She starts the day’s march “almost lifeless”. At the first halt she goes to Sergei, spits in his face calls him a “Scoundrel”. That night Sergei and another man break into Katerina’s cell, and flog her – fifty lashes. Immediately after the flogging Katerina hears Sonyetka laughing malevolently.



Act Four: Music comments This music reflects Shostakovich’s admiration for Mussorgsky. A powerful fanfare opens the act,

with hallmark Shostakovich discords brutalising the impact. The walking song is diatonic;

these convicts are salt of the earth… at least until they lapse into mocking Katerina. Katerina is at her most lyrical in this act, and has recognised her failings. Sergei is banal… his philandering life continues.

After the women convicts mock Katerina (at the end of 9-7) the opening fanfare is reprised… an ovewhelming tsunami of despair,

leading into Katerina’s bleakest aria: В лесу, в самой чаще есть озеро In the forest, often there’s a lake



SCENE NINE

Listen to the opera on CD, or open the following YouTube link in a new window www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MV5UnUXNjI&list=OLAK5uy_mTrlEpaBqCkGH1rDzEZBe2R1REv7CK6Yg&index=44

9-1 (CD 2 T 8 // CD 2 T 19) (EMI & DG // Warner) Katerina and Sergei are being marched to Siberia in a group of convicts. This scene takes place in an overnight camp on a steep bank [of the river Volga near Kazan]

Старый Каторжник + Каторжники: Вёрсты одна за другой Длинной ползут вереницей. Спал утомительны зной, Солнце за степи садится.

Эх, ты путь, цепями вскопанный, Путь в Сибирь, костьми засеянный, Потом, кровью путь тот вспоенный, Смертным стоном путь овеянный.

Ночь отдохнём – и опять С первыми солнца лучами, Будем мы вёрсты считать, Мерно звеня кандалами.

Эх, вы степи необъятные, Дни и ночи бесконечные, Наши думы безотрадные И жандармы бессердечные.

Old convict + convicts: Miles, one after another In a long crawling row. The exhausting heat is over, The sun sets over the steppes.

Oh, you are the road dug by chains The road to Siberia, sown with bones, The road that was soaked with blood, The road echoing groans of the dying.

We’ll rest for the night – then again With the first rays of the sun We will be counting the milestones To the rhythm of ringing shackles.

Eh, you steppes are vast, Days and nights without end Our thoughts are cheerless And the guards are heartless.



9-2 (CD 2 T 9 // CD 2 T 20) (EMI & DG // Warner) Katerina bribes a sentry to gain entry into the men’s quarters to see Sergei

Катя: (Часовому.) Степаныч, пропусти меня, вот двугривенный, водки купишь, Степаныч. Часовой: Ой, бабы! Блудливый народ! Ну уж ладно, ступай! Катя: Спасибо!

Серёжа, хороший мой! Наконец-то! Ведь целый день с тобой не виделась, Серёжа! И боль в ногах прошла, и усталость, и горе – всё забылось, раз ты со мною, Серёжа!

Сергей: А грех тоже забыла? Катя: Какой грех? Серёжа? Сергей: А кто до каторги меня довёл, забыла? Отойди! Катя: Серёжа! Ах, прости меня, Серёжа! Сергей: Уйди! Ты жизнь мою сгубила! Уйди! Катя: Ах, прости меня, прости меня Серёжа! Боже мой, какая мука, Серёжа! Сергей: Тоже, купчиха! Просто сволох!

Kate: (To the sentry.) Stepanych, let me through, here’s twenty kopecks, to buy vodka, Stepanych. Sentry: Oh, women! Such lecherous people! Well, alright go ahead! Kate: Thank you!

Seryozha, my dearest! At last! After all, I haven’t seen you all day, Seryozha! The pain in my legs is gone, the fatigue, the grief – all are forgotten, now I’m with you, Seryozha!

Sergei: Have you forgotten your sin too? Kate: What sin? Seryozha? Sergei: Who made me a prisoner, have you forgotten? Go away! Kate: Seryozha! Oh, forgive me, Seryozha! Sergei: Go away! You ruined my life! Go away! Kate: Ah, forgive me, forgive me Seryozha! My god, what a torment, Seryozha! Sergei: A fine merchant’s wife! Just a bastard!



9-3 (CD 2 T 10 // CD 2 T 21) (EMI & DG // Warner) Katerina returns to the women’s area

Катя: Нелегко после почёта да поклонов перед судом стоять! Нелегко после радости и ласк спину под плети палача подставлять! Нелегко после перин пуховых на земле холодной спать. Нелегко после неги и покоя тысячи вёрст шагать, нелегко! Но нет силы вытерпеть измены Сергея, видеть в каждом взгляде злую ненависть, слышать в каждом слове презрение. Вот этого не смогу я вытерпеть.

Kate: It’s not easy after being respected and bowed to, to stand before a court! It is not easy after joy and caresses to shift your back under an executioner's whip! It is not easy after feathery beds to sleep on the cold ground. It’s not easy after bliss and peace to walk thousands of miles, not easy! But I have no strength to bear Sergei’s betrayal, to see in his every glance evil hatred, to hear in his every word contempt. This is what I cannot bear.

9-4 (CD 2 T 11 CD 2 T 22) (EMI & DG // Warner) Sergei makes his way over to Sonyetka

Сергей: Моё почтенье! Сонетка: И как ты это всюду поспеваешь? Сергей: Четвертак унтеру я дал! Сонетка: И где ты столько четвертаков берёшь? Сергей: У купчихи! Сонетка: Ну и дура твоя купчиха! Сергей: Известно, дура.

Sergei: My respects! Sonyetka: How do you get around everywhere? Sergei: I gave the guard 25 kopecks! Sonyetka: Where do you get so many 25 kopecks? Sergei: From the merchant’s wife! Sonyetka: She’s a fool your merchant’s wife! Sergei: Certainly, a fool.



9-5 (CD 2 T 11 0’50 // CD 2 T 22 0’50) (EMI & DG // Warner) Sergei discovers Sonyetka’s price for a relationship

Сергей: Сонеточка моя, желаю я тебя попросить доставить мне радость жизни! Сонетка: Какую это радость? Сергей: Известно, какую! Сонетка: Какой прыткий. Иди к своей купчихе. Сергей: Опротивела она мне страшно. Сонетка: Что ж ты хороводишься с ней? Сергей: Из корысти. Сонетка: А думаешь я радости даром что ли буду доставлять? Обчёлся!

Сергей: Стой, Сонетка! Сонетка: Ну, вот, то ложись, то стой! Сергей: Люблю тебя! Сонетка: Докажи, что любишь! Сергей: Всё, что хочешь – всё твоё!? Сонетка: Видишь? Чулки порвались, холодно мне, достань чулки! Сергей: Да, где же? Сонетка: У купчихи! Сергей: Верно. Ладно, достану!

Sergei: Sonyetka my darling, I wish to ask you to give me the joy of my life! Sonyetka: What joy is that? Sergei: You know what it is! Sonyetka: What a brazen fellow. Go to your merchant’s wife. Sergei: She repels me. I’m sick of her. Sonyetka: Why do you still carry on with her? Sergei: Self-interest. Sonyetka: Do you think I’ll give joy for nothing? Think again!

Sergei: Wait, Sonyetka! Sonyetka: So, first lie with me, then wait! Sergei: I love you! Sonyetka: Prove that you love me! Sergei: Anything you want is all yours!? Sonyetka: See this? My stockings are torn, I’m cold, get me some stockings! Sergei: Yes, where would I get them from? Sonyetka: From the merchant’s wife! Sergei: That’s true. All right, I’ll get them!



9-6 (CD 2 T 11 2’40 // CD 2 T 23 0’10) (EMI & DG // Warner) Sergei visits Katerina, and persuades her to give him her stockings

Сергей: Катя! Катя: Серёжа, пришёл? Сергей: Катя, не сердись ты на меня, прости. Катя: Серёжа, ведь один ты у меня, моя радость … А ты оскорбил меня жестоко. Сергей: Катя, прости, тяжело мне. Последние разы с тобой я вижусь. Катя: Почему, Серёжа? Сергей: Дойду до города, в больницу слягу, кандалами ногу натёр, боль нестерпимая. Катя: Как же так? Что ж я без тебя буду делать? Ведь меня дальше погонят! Сергей: Погонят! Не смогу я дальше идти, больно! Катя: Серёжа, да ведь мне же без тебя часу не прожить ... что делать? Не может быть, Серёжа, нас разлучать нельзя! Сергей: Вот если бы где-нибудь шерстяные чулки достать, помогло б, наверно! Катя: Чулки? Что ж ты раньше молчал, Серёжа? На чулки, возьми чулки!

Sergei: Katya! Kate: Seryozha, you’ve come? Sergei: Katya, don’t be angry with me, I’m sorry. Kate: Seryozha, you are all I have, my joy ... But you offended me cruelly. Sergei: Katya, I'm sorry, it's hard for me. This is the last time I’ll see you. Kate: Why, Seryozha? Sergei: I’m going to the town, to hospital, the shackles rubbed my leg, the pain is unbearable. Kate: How’s that? What will I do without you? After all, they will make me go on! Sergei: Go on! I can’t go any further, it hurts! Kate: Seryozha, I couldn’t live an hour without you ... what can I do? This can’t happen Seryozha, we cannot be separated! Sergei: Well, if somehow I could get some woolen stockings, it would help, probably! Kate: Stockings? Why didn’t you say that before, Seryozha? Stockings, take these stockings!



Сергей: Ах, Катя, спасибо, радость ты моя! Катя: Вот, возьми. Сергей: Ну, я сейчас приду! Катя: Куда ты? Сергей: Сейчас приду. Катя: Серёжа, Серёжа! Зачем он ушёл?

(Быстро пробирается к Сонетке.)

Сергей: На чулки! Идём, теперь ты моя! Сонетка: Ишь, зверь! Катя: Сергей! Зачем ты… чулки Сонетке?

(Сергей уносит Сонетку.)

Sergei: Ah, Katya, thank you, you are my joy! Kate: Here, take them. Sergei: Well, I'll be right back! Kate: Where are you going? Sergei: I’ll be right back! Kate: Seryozha, Seryozha! Why’s he going?

(He quickly makes his way to Sonyetka.)

Sergei: Stockings! Come on, now you're mine! Sonyetka: Oh you are a hunk! Kate: Sergei! So they’re stockings for Sonyetka?

(Sergei takes Sonyetka away).



9-7 (CD 2 T 11 5’45 // CD 2 T 24 0’25 ) (EMI & DG // Warner) Katerina is mocked by the other female convicts

Каторжница[ы]: У купчихи в жар и пил ещё клокочет.

А любовник остыл, он и знать её не хочет.

Ничего не стало более: Потеряла свой радости на воле! А в неволе жениха!

Катеринa Львовнa, Натворила ты делов!

Без Сергея Катерине очень скучно! Купчиха без Сергея пропадет.

Отдай чулочки нам!

Катя: Ах, пустите! Каторжница[ы]: Без Сергея Катерине очень скучно!

Часовой:Смирно! Чего огете? Каторжница[ы]: Там… Сергей, Сонетка!.. Часовой: Молчать! Я вас…

Female convict[s]: The merchant’s wife’s passion is still burning.

But the lover has cooled, he doesn’t even want to know her.

Nothing is left anymore: She lost her joy outside! And in captivity she lost her groom!

Katerina Lvovna, What have you done!

Without Sergei, Katerina will be very bored! The merchant’s wife will be lost without Sergei

Give us stockings!

Kate: Ah, let me go! Female convict[s]: Without Sergei Katerina will be very bored!

Guard: Attention! Why are you shouting? Female convict[s]: There ... Sergei, Sonyetka! Guard: Shut up! I'll…



9-8 (CD 2 T 12 // CD 2 25) (EMI & DG // Warner) Katerina is now in the pit of despair

Катя: В лесу, в самой чаще есть озеро, совсем круглое, очень глубокое и вода в нем чёрная, как моя совесть, чёрная. И когда ветер ходит в лесу, на озере поднимаются волны, – тогда страшно. А осенью в озере всегда волны, чёрная вода и большие волны. Чёрные большие волны…

Kate: In the forest, often there’s a lake, quite round, and very deep and its water is black, like my conscience, black. And when wind blows in the forest, on the lake waves rise, – then it's frightening. And in autumn on the lake there’s always waves, black water and huge waves. Black huge waves ...

9-9 (CD 2 T 12 3’40 // CD 2 T 26 0’00) (EMI & DG // Warner) Sergei and Sonyetka return after making love

Сергей: Знаешь ли, Сонетка, на кого с тобой мы похожи? На Адама и на Еву. Сонетка: Ну, на рай здесь не слишком-то похоже! Сергей: Пустяки. Мы сейчас побывали в раю. Сонетка: (Подходя к Катерине.) Спасибо, Катерина Львовна, за чулки спасибо! Посмотри, как красиво на моих ногах сидят. Серёжа мне их надевал и ноги поцелуями мне согревал. Ах, Серёжа, мой Серёжа, Катерина дура не сумела удержать Сергея. Эх, дура! А чулочки-то – тю-тю, они теперь мои, видишь? Мне теперь тепло.

Sergei: Do you know, Sonyetka, who we take after? Adam and Eve. Sonyetka: Well, it doesn’t look like paradise here! Sergei: Nonsense. We just went to paradise. Sonyetka: (Approaching Katerina.) Thank you, Katerina Lvovna, thanks for the stockings! See how beautiful they look on my feet. Seryozha put them on me and kissed my feet with warmth. Ah, Seryozha, my Seryozha, Katerina the fool did not manage to keep Sergei. Oh, you fool! And your stockings are bye bye, now they’re mine, see? I'm warm now.



9-10 (CD 2 T 13 // CD 2 T 27) (EMI & DG // Warner) The convicts are mustered. It’s time to move on

Унтер: Вставай! По местам! Живо! Каторжники: Эх, вставать надо, дальше, надо идти.

Старый Каторжник: (Катерине.) Ты бабонька, слышишь? Уходим. Они ругаться будут, слышишь?

(Катерина медленно подходит к Сонетке, стоящей на краю обрыва, обхватывает её

и вместе с ней бросается в воду.)

Сонетка: Ах!

Каторжники: Боже мой! Что такое? Унтер: Ни с места! Ну! Я вас! … Обе потонули. Спасти нельзя, течение сильное! Смирно! По местам!

Officer: Stand up! To your places! Look lively! Convicts: Eh, we’ve got to get up, we’ve got to go further.

Old convict: (To Katerina) You old girl, do you hear? We’re leaving. They will swear at you, do you hear?

(Katerina slowly approaches Sonyetka, standing on the edge of the cliff, grabs her

and throws herself into the water with her.)

Sonyetka: Ah!

Convicts: My God! What’s happened? Officer: Don’t move! Watch it! You! … Both drowned. We can’t save them, the current is too strong! Attention! To your places!



Старый Каторжник: Снова и снова шагать, Мерно звеня кандалами. Версты уныло считать, Пыль поднимая ногами! Каторжники: Эх, вы дали необъятные, Дни и ночи бесконечные, Наши думы безотрадные И жандармы бессердечные.

Old convict: Again and again walking, To the rhythm of ringing shackles. Despondently counting the miles, Dust raised by our feet! Convicts: Eh, you steppes are vast, Days and nights without end Our thoughts are cheerless And the guards are heartless

Конец оперы / End of the opera



Alternative final chorus The 1932 libretto has powerful alternative lyrics for the old convict at the end:

Старый Каторжник: Обе погибли. Ах,судьбы тяжкие, наши судьбы! Снова и снова шагать, С первыми солнца лучами. Версты уныло считать, Мерно звеня кандалами. Ах, отчего это жизнь наша такая темная, страшная? Разве для такой жизни рождён человек?

Old convict: Both died. Ah, fate is hard, our fate! Again and again walking, With the first rays of the sun. Despondently counting the miles, To the rhythm of ringing shackles. Ah, why is our life so dark, so terrible? Is a man born for such a life?

Post pandemic I’m hoping to check the British Library scores to find which 1930s performing versions included these lyrics.



Reaction to Lady Macbeth For two years Lady Macbeth played to packed houses in the USSR and abroad.

Then, on 26 January 1936, Stalin went to a performance, and hated the opera. Two days later a scathing review was published in Pravda,

headline: Muddle instead of music.

Before analysing Pravda’s position, let’s hear some earlier views from: Creative collaborators who played a role in bringing the opera to the stage Soviet musicologists and composers Composers abroad.



Reaction: Creative collaborators Here’s part of an account of Shostakovich’s play-through of Acts One and Two in March 1932. This is from an article by Mordvinov printed with the libretto published in 1934. Mordvinov was Director of the Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre.

It became apparent to everyone in attendance that we were dealing with a phenomenon of the most interesting and highest creative order. The silence that lasted several minutes after the conclusion was a sign of general agreement about our high assessment.… The opera was accepted without any qualms and, proud and happy to be the first to confer such recognition, we signed a contract with Dmitri Dmitriyevich almost the very next day.

[Fay p 69]

Here’s how Pavel Zlatogorov recalled the first run through of the entire opera in May 1933 This account was published in Советская Музыка / Soviet Music in 1967.

[Shostakovich played the last act to] Nemirovich-Danchenko [the man after whom the theatre was named] and us, the contributors to the upcoming performance. I will never forget the excitement that seized us all as the last note faded and the composer took his hands off the keys. It was dead silence. [Commissar] Bubnov was the first to find words:

"What strength! What Shakespeare-like power and depth!" Nemirovich-Danchenko hugged the composer tightly and said:

"Young man, you have no idea of the Herculean power in your work ..." [Meyer p 170]



Reaction: Creative collaborators /2 Here are thoughts from Samosud – who conducted the Leningrad premiere in January 1934.

First Samosud says Lady Macbeth is the most groundbreaking Russian opera since Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades. [Note: Samosud may have selected Queen of Spades as the historical comparison because he was working on a production with Meyerhold, which was first performed in January 1935. Queen of Spades shares a musical characteristic with Lady Macbeth – significant and obvious quotes from other composers, in this case Mozart and André Grétry]

Then he compares it favourably to Berg’s Wozzeck…

“[Berg’s] drama sometimes slips into traditional sentimentalism, whereas the dramatic expressiveness and emotion of Lady Macbeth is free from any superficiality. … This opera is not only unusually dramatic, but also virtuosic in the style of Mozart. ... I think Lady Macbeth is a brilliant work and I am convinced that this judgment will be confirmed by posterity. One cannot help but be proud that Soviet musical theatre produced an opera in 1934 that overshadows everything that has been created in Western opera. In this sense, our culture has indeed not just caught up with the most advanced western countries, but has overtaken them.”

[Meyer p 174] Meyer has longest version of this frequently quoted article, taken from Samosud: Articles, memoirs, letters. Compiled Dansker (1984)

The original appears to have been written around 1934 or 1935



Reaction: Soviet musicologists and composers Lady Macbeth was received with huge enthusiasm in the Soviet press. As an example, here is an article by Alexander Ostretsov in Советская Музыка / Soviet Music:

[Lady Macbeth] could have been written only by a Soviet composer brought up in the best traditions of Soviet culture and actively fighting by means of his art for the victory of the new social Weltanschauung. In its serious artistic worth and high level of musical mastery… the opera is the result of the general success of socialist construction, of the correct policy of the Party towards all sections of the country’s cultural life, and of the deep significance of that new upwelling of creative strength evoked on the musical front by the historic decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of 23 April 1932.

[Norris p 120]

Composers expressing enthusiasm included:

Shaporin, who saw Lady Macbeth as “the apex of Shostakovich’s creative work”. [Fay p 76]

Popov, who attended a rehearsal in Leningrad with Prokofiev, and wrote: “Lady Macbeth is a remarkable, deep, and brilliantly orchestrated composition”.

[Fay p 76]

Myaskovsky thought it was “stunningly wonderful” after his first hearing… despite some objections to the orchestration.

[Fay p 75]



Reaction: Soviet musicologists and composers /2 Not everyone was enthusiastic…

Leningrad Union of Soviet Composers held a roundtable on the opera within a month of the premiere. There were heated exchanges.

“[Some] carped at the lack of restraint and critical balance in the extravagant praise… as well as at the proper assessment of the composer’s development and its relationship to Russian tradition.”

[Fay p 76]

Conductor Aleksandr Gauk wrote: Many people were put off by some of the naturalistic scenes and situations. It seems to me that this defect originated from the desire to give upmost expression to the subject, and better convey the sordid character and the depraved atmosphere in which the action takes place.

[From a 1961 memoir, quoted Wilson p 95]

Zhitomirsky: (writer / musicologist) Composer and librettist considered it necessary to portray the ‘dark ages’ of Old Russia. They removed from Leskov’s story all the poetic pages which illustrated the deluded beginnings of Katerina’s love – the illusion of her first womanly passion which led to such a tragic end. They introduced primitive satire into the opera. The priest… the police station remind me of … collective propaganda in clubs and factories… Yet it is in the final scene of Lady Macbeth that Shostakovich revealed with incredible force the expression of human sorrow and the despair of the lost soul.

[Wilson p 95]



Reaction: Composers Abroad Benjamin Britten attended the British premiere of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk on 18 March 1936 a concert performance conducted by Albert Coates with Peter Pears taking a minor tenor solo role. In his diary he wrote:

Some terrific music in the entr’actes. But I will defend it through thick and thin against these charges of “lack of style”… There is a consistency of style & method throughout. The satire is biting and brilliant. It is never boring for a second – even in this form… The “eminent English renaissance” composers sniggering in the stalls was typical. There is more music in a page of Macbeth than in the whole of their “elegant” output.

[Kennedy p 23]

Britten came under the influence of Shostakovich. Reviewing his operetta Paul Bunyan (1941), Virgil Thompson noted it was modelled on Shostakovich. [Kennedy p 33] And biographer Michael Kennedy notes that Britten’s 1945 Peter Grimes has [Lady Macbeth as the] “obvious prototype”.

[Kennedy p 169]



Reaction: Composers Abroad /2 Igor Stravinsky heard Lady Macbeth in New York (4 February 1935 – conducted Rodzinski). He wrote to Ernset Ansermet:

The style of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth is extremely disturbing, and the score is a work of lamentable provincialism in which the music simply serves as illustration. But it was acclaimed [in New York] by a bewitched public... In Paris two years ago, his First Symphony made a far better impression on me than this opera has done... the music plays a miserable role of illustration, and in an embarrassingly realist style. Formless, monotonous music – a system of recitatives and entr’actes during which the conductor works up the applause of a public delighted at being brutalised by the arrogance of the very numerous communist brass instruments. [As for] this premiere (and, I hope, dernier) ... I regret to have to be so hard on Shostakovich, but he profoundly deceived me both in his mentality and in musical value... This is not the work of a musician but the product of a total indifference to music in the country of the Soviets.

[4 April 1935 IS letter to Ansermet from Vera Stavinsky & Crafts p 201-2]



Reaction: Composers Abroad /3 Elliott Carter encountered Lady Macbeth in 1960; a rare revival in Düsseldorf, directed by Teo Otto, which predates Shostakovich’s re-launch of the opera as Katerina Izmailova. Carter wasn’t impressed…

As an indication of the cultural condition of Russia of the 1920s and '30s by a child of the time, the score presents a terrifying example of musical genius, vitality, and skill put to purely opportunistic uses with total disregard for musical unity, taste, and coherence. In its lack of concern for any consistent point of view, moral, political, or even artistic, it resembles a "comic" book, particularly since it is the expression of a temperament that only gives evidence of a craving for grim physical excitement, but does not always succeed in expressing even this, because of an inability to clarify intentions and consequently to be self-critical. Styles of Alban Berg, Hindemith, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Offenbach confront each other without transition. Genuinely inventive passages follow others of extreme mechanical dullness. The timing is haphazard. A long scene of wrong-note operetta music pokes fun endlessly at the ineffectuality of the local police, while one of the culminating scenes that in which the heroine mixes rat poison, feeds it to her father-in-law (who has just horsewhipped her lover), and watches his death agonies impassively is dismissed briefly and weakly.



Reaction: Composers Abroad /4

The relation of the music to the action is unaccountable, ranging from opposition, as in the scene in which the heroine and her lover strangle her husband on a large stage sized four-poster bed to a lively dance tune, to the more familiar underlining of action and mood. Today, the makeshift and callous quality of all this recalls poignantly the description of those years in Russia in Boris Pasternak's novel Dr. Zhivago, when values that had always given human meaning to the individual's life were ridiculed and rejected. The gusto and very real musical talent with which the composer expresses his sense of physical excitement, of rowdy comedy, and of disgust make the opera worth hearing, no matter how disturbing it is as an example of an artist looking coldly on a society of passionate people living violently and brutally, and giving no sign of sympathy or of understanding in his music. The very possibility of human understanding itself seems banished along with any ideological point of view that at least might have helped to give the work some serious justification.

[Carter p 29]



Stalin goes to the opera In January 1936 Stalin had two trips to the opera. First he went to see Dzerzhinky’s Тихий Дон, based on Sholokhov’s novel, usually translated as Quiet flows the Don.

Dzerzhinsky’s music is clearly based on folk song; harmonically simple – in line with mass song.

This was Dzerzhinsky’s first significant work. Shostakovich had helped him assemble and edit the score.

In the interval Stalin and Molotov chatted with composer and Samosud – the conductor. 21 January Pravda carried an article, in which the composer disclosed:

Comrade Stalin said the time was ripe for the creation of classical Soviet opera. He pointed out that such opera should be emotionally inspiring, and that melodic inflections of folk music should be widely used. The music ought to make use of all the latest devices of musical techniques, but its idiom should be close to the masses, clear and accessible.

[Schwarz p 144]



Stalin goes to the opera /2 A few days later Stalin went to see the new Bolshoi production of Lady Macbeth. Members of the entourage included Molotov, Mikoyan and Zhdanov.

The Bolshoi called Shostakovich to tell him about the distinguished guests. He hurried over. During the intervals he wasn’t called to Stalin’s box. The government delegation left after Act Three. That night Shostakovich travelled to Arkhangelsk – for a concert with cellist Viktor Kubatsky. Shostakovich wrote to his friend Ivan Sollertinsky:

Feeling sick at heart, I collected my brief-case and went to the station… I’m in bad spirits. As you can guess, I kept thinking about what happened to your namesake, and what didn’t happen to me.

[Letter from Arkhangelsk dated 28 Jan 1936 quoted Wilson p 109]

Note: The namesake reference is to Sollertinsky (recipient of letter) and Dzerzhinsky (composer of Тихий Дон) who both had the name and patronymic Ivan Ivanovich.

On 28 January he bought Pravda at Arkhangelsk railway station. On page three there was a review of Lady Macbeth

unsigned – indicating it was an official Party perspective.



Muddle instead of music Pravda, 28 January 1936

Along with the general cultural development of our country has also grown the need for good music. At no other time and in no other place have composers had a more appreciative audience. The popular masses expect good songs, but also good instrumental works, and good operas. Certain theatres are presenting, as a novelty – an achievement, for our new culturally developed Soviet audience Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Distinguished musical critics have praised the opera to the heavens, creating for it enormous success. The young composer, instead of hearing business-like serious criticism, which could help him in his future work, hears only enthusiastic compliments. From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a chaotic stream of sound. Fragments of melody, the rudiments of musical phrases, sink, re-emerge, and then disappear in a grinding and squealing roar. It is difficult to follow this "music", impossible to remember it. So it goes on, for almost the entire opera. On the stage singing is replaced by shrieks. If the composer chances upon the path of a simple understandable melody, he immediately, as if afraid of such a disaster, throws himself back into the wilderness of musical muddle, which in places becomes a cacophony. The expressiveness which the listener expects is replaced by frantic rhythm. Musical noise expresses passion. This is not due to the composer’s mediocrity, nor his inability to depict strong and simple emotions in music. This music is deliberately turned “topsy-turvy” in order that nothing resembles classical opera, and that nothing has anything in common with symphonic soundings or simple and generally accessible musical language.



Muddle instead of music /2

This music is built on the principle of negating opera, the same principle by which "Leftist" Art in the theatre negates simplicity, realism, clarity of image, and unaffected spoken word. This is a transfer to opera and music of the most negative features of "Meyerholdism" in multiplied form. This is "leftist" muddle instead of natural human music. The power of good music to thrill the masses has been sacrificed to petty-bourgeois, "formalist" urges claiming to create originality through cheap clowning. This is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly. The danger of this trend to Soviet music is clear. Leftist distortion in opera stems from the same source as Leftist distortion in painting, poetry, teaching, and science. Petty-bourgeois "innovations" lead to a separation from genuine art, genuine science and genuine literature. The composer of Lady Macbeth was forced to borrow from jazz its nervous, convulsive, and spasmodic music in order to lend "passion" to his characters. While our critics, including music critics, swear by the name of socialist realism, the stage serves us, in Shostakovich's work, the coarsest kind of naturalism. Everything is presented in a monotonous bestial manner – both merchants and ordinary people. The predatory merchant woman who claws into possession of wealth and power through murder is pictured as some kind of "victim" of bourgeois society. Leskov's everyday story has had a significance imposed on it, which it does not possess.



Muddle instead of music /3

And all this is coarse, primitive and vulgar. The music quacks, grunts, growls, and gasps in order to portray love scenes as naturalistically as possible. And "love" is smeared throughout the opera in the most vulgar form. The merchant's double bed occupies centre stage. On this bed all "problems" are resolved. In the same crude, naturalistic style is a death from poisoning, and a flogging, practically on stage. The composer apparently never considered the question of what the Soviet audience looks for and expects in music. It was as though he deliberately encrypted his music, mixing up all the sounds in such a way that his music only impresses the effete "formalists" who have lost all their wholesome taste. He ignored the demand of Soviet culture that all coarseness and savagery be abolished from every corner of Soviet life. Some critics call the extolling of the merchants' lust a satire. But there is no question of any satire here. The composer has tried, with all the musical and dramatic means at his command, to gain audience sympathy for the coarse and vulgar aspirations and behaviour of the merchant woman Katerina Izmailova. Lady Macbeth is a success with bourgeois audiences abroad. Don’t the bourgeois audiences praise it because this opera is confused and absolutely apolitical? Is its success not explained by the fact that it tickles the perverted bourgeois taste with its fidgety, loud, neurasthenic music? Our theatres have put great energy into carefully staging Shostakovich's opera. The singers have shown exceptional talent in dominating the noise, the screaming, and the rattle of the orchestra. With their dramatic action, they have tried to compensate for the melodic squalor of the opera. Unfortunately, this has only brought out the vulgar features more clearly. Talented acting deserves gratitude, the wasted efforts – regret.



What does Muddle instead of music mean? Let’s pull out the main arguments made in this article – Muddle instead of music. Lady Macbeth isn’t proper Soviet music…

It’s discordant. Difficult to follow – impossible to remember. Borrows nervous, convulsive, and spasmodic approach from jazz.

Lady Macbeth appeals to western bourgeoisie. Perverted bourgeois taste… “formalists”.

Lady Macbeth misrepresents Leskov his story has had a new significance imposed on it.

…the article clearly thinks the opera libretto has inappropriately drifted from Leskov’s original.

Our critics, swear by the name of socialist realism, BUT the stage serves us, in Shostakovich's work, the coarsest kind of naturalism.

…just a passing comment on socialist realism – after all the opera had been written before the phrase came into currency, and premiered before there was any significant attempt to define socialist realism.



What does Muddle instead of music mean? /2 Naturalism is not the same as realism…

love scenes where the music quacks, grunts, growls, and gasps.

Clowning… complexity… Meyerholdism! This is not genuine ART. This is a Leftist deviation.

…we’ll come back to Meyerhold and Leftist deviation in the pages below.

A game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly.

… imagine Shostakovich’s thoughts as he read that this game “may end very badly”.

But Shostakovich is a talented young composer let down by the musical establishment. Until now he’s not received effective criticism which could help his future development.

Proper attention to Party guidance on these issues will prevent artists from falling foul in the future.

… a glimmer of hope, after all?



Leftist deviation and Meyerhold In 1936, Stalin perceived Left deviation as his main opponent in the USSR. Left deviation was the target of the first stage of the Great Terror. Zinoviev and Kamenev had been arrested and would soon be subject of the first great show trial. The most credible charge against them was a wish to return to the heady days of the international revolution, rather than the current course of socialist construction in one country. Lenin had acted agaist Left deviation in 1909 when he expelled the Left Bolsheviks,

and again in 1920 when he published Left wing Communism an Infantile Disorder. Both times a key opponent had been Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928):

in 1909 Bogdanov had been a rival for leadership of the Bolsheviks in 1920 he had been leader of Proletkult.

Proletkult was an arts movement which aimed to build Socialism by injecting newly created proletarian aesthetics into radically modified arts forms.

Stalin’s newly minted Socialist Realism was a repudiation of the last vestages of Proletkult.

Trotsky is thrown into the mix of leftist deviation.

… but don’t read too much into that. By January 1937 Trotsky was implicated in the Second Show Trial – of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre. And in March 1938 the Third Show Trial took on the Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites led by Bukharin,

who were charged with attempting to overthrow socialism and restore capitalism.



Leftist deviation and Meyerhold /2 Meyerhold is mentioned in Muddle instead of music. Unlike Shostakovich, he is offered offered no route to redemption. His influence is appropriately seen in Lady Macbeth.

(See Session One, discussing Meyerhold’s biomechanics, and hyperbolic slapstick). In November 1937 he was attacked in Pravda in an article titled An Alien Theatre.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution only one out of the seven hundred Soviet professional theatres was without a special production to commemorate the October Revolution and without a Soviet repertoire. That theatre was Meyerhold’s Theatre… It has become absolutely clear that Meyerhold cannot and, apparently, will not comprehend Soviet reality.

[Braun p 288]

He continued working. He tried to rebuild his reputation – one of his final projects was Prokofiev’s new opera Semyon Kotko.

In June 1939 Meyerhold was arrested in Leningrad. Three weeks later his wife was brutally murdered.

In October he was indicted. The charge sheet included: “In 1930 Meyerhold was head of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist group Left Front, which coordinated all anti-Soviet elements in the field of the arts”.

[Braun p 303]

He was shot in February 1940. For twenty years it was risky to say anything positive about Meyerhold or Meyerholdism.



Stalin confirms the meaning of Muddle instead of music? There has been significant speculation about the Pravda article – Muddle instead of music:

Was Stalin set up? sent to a production of Lady Macbeth that would offend his sensibilities?

put in a box directly over the “on stage brass” section? Was Muddle instead of music fall out from a feud between arts administrators? Was Stalin even significantly involved in writing Muddle instead of music? Was Shostakovich unfortunate collateral damage?



Stalin confirms the meaning of Muddle? /2 One document from the archives takes the wind out of this speculation… Leonid Maximenov – who has written at length about Muddle instead of music

found a record of a conversation between Stalin and other leading party members.

The author is Boris Shumiatsky, Head of Film for the Arts Committee, who presented new movies to Stalin, and recorded, in detail, post-screening comments.

Here’s his record of conversations from 29 January 1936…

conversations which took place the day after Muddle instead of music was published. Stalin gives a simple, off-the-cuff, restatement of the article:

That’s the crux. They [the composers] aren’t being directed. And thus people are throwing themselves into thickets of all kinds of eccentricities. And they are even praised for this, praised to excess. But now when an explanation has been given in Pravda, all our composers should start creating music that is transparent and understandable, not rebuses and riddles in which the meaning of the work dies. … The Arts Committee should take the Pravda article as a programme for musical art. If it doesn’t, it [the Arts Committee] will do badly.

[Maximenov in Fay DDS World, p 48]



APPENDIX 42 Сумбур вместо музыки: Original article 43 Сумбур вместо музыки / Muddle instead of music: Parallel text translation



Сумбур вместо музыки Muddle instead of music

Вместе с общим культурным ростом в нашей стране выросла и потребность в хорошей музыке. Никогда и нигде композиторы не имели перед собой такой благодарной аудитории. Народные массы ждут хороших песен, но также и хороших инструментальных произведений, хороших опер.

Along with the general cultural development of our country has also grown the need for good music. At no other time and in no other place have composers had a more appreciative audience. The popular masses expect good songs, but also good instrumental works, and good operas.

Некоторые театры как новинку, как достижение преподносят новой, выросшей культурно советской публике оперу Шостаковича «Леди Макбет Мценского уезда». Услужливая музыкальная критика превозносит до небес оперу, создает ей громкую славу. Молодой композитор вместо деловой и серьезной критики, которая могла бы помочь ему в дальнейшей работе, выслушивает только восторженные комплименты.

Certain theatres are presenting, as a novelty – an achievement, for our new culturally developed Soviet audience Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Distinguished musical critics have praised the opera to the heavens, creating for it enormous success. The young composer, instead of hearing business-like serious criticism, which could help him in his future work, hears only enthusiastic compliments.

Слушателя с первой же минуты ошарашивает в опере нарочито нестройный, сумбурный поток звуков. Обрывки мелодии, зачатки музыкальной фразы тонут, вырываются, снова исчезают в грохоте, скрежете и визге. Следить за этой «музыкой» трудно, запомнить ее невозможно.

From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a chaotic stream of sound. Fragments of melody, the rudiments of musical phrases, sink, re-emerge, and then disappear in a grinding and squealing roar. It is difficult to follow this "music", impossible to remember it.




Так в течение почти всей оперы. На сцене пение заменено криком. Если композитору случается попасть на дорожку простой и понятной мелодии, то он немедленно, словно испугавшись такой беды, бросается в дебри музыкального сумбура, местами превращающегося в какофонию. Выразительность, которой требует слушатель, заменена бешеным ритмом. Музыкальный шум должен выразить страсть.

So it goes on, for almost the entire opera. On the stage singing is replaced by shrieks. If the composer chances upon the path of a simple understandable melody, he immediately, as if afraid of such a disaster, throws himself back into the wilderness of musical muddle, which in places becomes a cacophony. The expressiveness which the listener expects is replaced by frantic rhythm. Musical noise expresses passion.

Это все не от бездарности композитора, не от его неумения в музыке выразить простые и сильные чувства. Это музыка, умышленно сделанная «шиворот-навыворот», — так, чтобы ничего не напоминало классическую оперную музыку, ничего не было общего с симфоническими звучаниями, с простой, общедоступной музыкальной речью. Это музыка, которая построена по тому же принципу отрицания оперы, по какому левацкое искусство вообще отрицает в театре простоту, реализм, понятность образа, естественное звучание слова. Это — перенесение в оперу, в музыку наиболее отрицательных черт «мейерхольдовщины» в умноженном виде. Это левацкий сумбур вместо естественной, человеческой музыки. Способность хорошей музыки захватывать массы приносится в жертву мелкобуржуазным формалисти ческим потугам, претензиям создать оригинальность приемами дешевых оригинальничаний. Это игра в заумные вещи, которая может кончиться очень плохо.

This is not due to the composer’s mediocrity, nor his inability to depict strong and simple emotions in music. This music is deliberately turned “topsy-turvy” in order that nothing resembles classical opera, and that nothing has anything in common with symphonic soundings or simple and generally accessible musical language. This music is built on the principle of negating opera, the same principle by which "Leftist" Art in the theatre negates simplicity, realism, clarity of image, and unaffected spoken word. This is a transfer to opera and music of the most negative features of "Meyerholdism" in multiplied form. This is "leftist" muddle instead of natural human music. The power of good music to thrill the masses has been sacrificed to petty-bourgeois, "formalist" urges claiming to create originality through cheap clowning. This is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly.




Опасность такого направления в советской музыке ясна. Левацкое уродство в опере растет из того же источника, что и левацкое уродство в живописи, в поэзии, в педагогике, в науке. Мелкобуржуазное «новаторство» ведет к отрыву от подлинного искусства, от подлинной науки, от подлинной литературы.

The danger of this trend to Soviet music is clear. Leftist distortion in opera stems from the same source as Leftist distortion in painting, poetry, teaching, and science. Petty-bourgeois "innovations" lead to a separation from genuine art, genuine science and genuine literature.

Автору «Леди Макбет» пришлось заимствовать у джаза его нервозную, судорожную, припадочную музыку, чтобы придать «страсть» своим героям.

The composer of Lady Macbeth was forced to borrow from jazz its nervous, convulsive, and spasmodic music in order to lend "passion" to his characters.

В то время, как наша критика — в том числе и музыкальная — клянется именем социалистического реализма, сцена преподносит нам в творении Шостаковича грубейший натурализм. Однотонно, в зверином обличии представлены все — и купцы и народ. Хищница-купчиха, дорвавшаяся путем убийств к богатству и власти, представлена в виде какой-то «жертвы» буржуазного общества. Бытовой повести Лескова навязан смысл, какого в ней нет.

While our critics, including music critics, swear by the name of socialist realism, the stage serves us, in Shostakovich's work, the coarsest kind of naturalism. Everything is presented in a monotonous bestial manner – both merchants and ordinary people. The predatory merchant woman who claws into possession of wealth and power through murder is pictured as some kind of "victim" of bourgeois society. Leskov's everyday story has had a significance imposed on it, which it does not possess.




И все это грубо, примитивно, вульгарно. Музыка крякает, ухает, пыхтит, задыхается, чтобы как можно натуральнее изобразить любовные сцены. И «любовь» размазана во всей опере в самой вульгарной форме. Купеческая двуспальная кровать занимает центральное место в оформлении. На ней разрешаются все «проблемы». В таком же грубо-натуралистическом стиле показана смерть от отравления, сечение почти на самой сцене.

And all this is coarse, primitive and vulgar. The music quacks, grunts, growls, and gasps in order to portray love scenes as naturalistically as possible. And "love" is smeared throughout the opera in the most vulgar form. The merchant's double bed occupies centre stage. On this bed all "problems" are resolved. In the same crude, naturalistic style is a death from poisoning, and a flogging, practically on stage.

Композитор, видимо, не поставил перед собой задачи прислушаться к тому, чего ждет, чего ищет в музыке советская аудитория. Он словно нарочно зашифровал свою музыку, перепутал все звучания в ней так, чтобы дошла его музыка только до потерявших здоровый вкус эстетов-формалистов. Он прошел мимо требований советской культуры изгнать грубость и дикость из всех углов советского быта. Это воспевание купеческой похотливости некоторые критики называют сатирой. Ни о какой сатире здесь и речи не может быть. Всеми средствами и музыкальной и драматической выразительности автор старается привлечь симпатии публики к грубым и вульгарным стремлениям и поступкам купчихи Катерины Измайловой.

The composer apparently never considered the question of what the Soviet audience looks for and expects in music. It was as though he deliberately encrypted his music, mixing up all the sounds in such a way that his music only impresses the effete "formalists" who have lost all their wholesome taste. He ignored the demand of Soviet culture that all coarseness and savagery be abolished from every corner of Soviet life. Some critics call the extolling of the merchants' lust a satire. But there is no question of any satire here. The composer has tried, with all the musical and dramatic means at his command, to gain audience sympathy for the coarse and vulgar aspirations and behaviour of the merchant woman Katerina Izmailova.




«Леди Макбет» имеет успех у буржуазной публики за границей. Не потому ли похваливает ее буржуазная публика, что опера эта сумбурна и абсолютно аполитична? Не потому ли, что она щекочет извращенные вкусы буржуазной аудитории своей дергающейся, крикливой, неврастенической музыкой?

Lady Macbeth is a success with bourgeois audiences abroad. Don’t the bourgeois audiences praise it because this opera is confused and absolutely apolitical? Is its success not explained by the fact that it tickles the perverted bourgeois taste with its fidgety, loud, neurasthenic music?

Наши театры приложили немало труда, чтобы тщательно поставить оперу Шостаковича. Актеры обнаружили значительный талант в преодолении шума, крика и скрежета оркестра. Драматической игрой они старались возместить мелодийное убожество оперы. К сожалению, от этого еще ярче выступили ее грубо-натуралистические черты. Талантливая игра заслуживает признательности, затраченные усилия — сожаления.

Our theatres have put great energy into carefully staging Shostakovich's opera. The singers have shown exceptional talent in dominating the noise, the screaming, and the rattle of the orchestra. With their dramatic action, they have tried to compensate for the melodic squalor of the opera. Unfortunately, this has only brought out the vulgar features more clearly. Talented acting deserves gratitude, the wasted efforts – regret.

Terry Metheringham asserts his right to be identified as the author of this work

in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Act Four - u3asites.org.uk

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