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Katerina’s Flaming Fury Milano
Teatro alla Scala
12/07/2025 - & December 10, 13, 16*, 19, 23, 30, 2025
Dmitri Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, opus 29
Sara Jakubiak (Katerina Lvovna Izmailova), Alexander Roslavets (Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov), Yevgeny Akimov (Zinoviy Borisovich Izmailov), Najmiddin Mavlyanov (Sergei), Alexander Kravets (Village Drunk), Ekaterina Sannikova (Aksinya), Elena Maximova (Sonyetka), Jirí Rajnis (Yard Keeper), Chao Liu (Millhand), Valery Gilmanov (Priest), Vasyl Solodkyy (School Teacher), Ivan Shcherbatykh*/Guillermo Esteban Bussolini (Foreman), Laura Lolita Peresivana (Female Convict), Oleg Budaratskiy (Police Sergeant), Massimiliano Difino*/Renis Hyka (Drunken Guest), Goderdzi Janelidze (Old Convict), Xhieldo Hyseni (Sergeant), Huanhong Li (Policeman), Chao Liu (Sentry), Haiyang Guo (Coachman), Antonio Murgo, Joon Ho Pak, Flavio D’Ambra (Workers)
Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Alberto Malazzi (Chorus Master), Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Chailly (Conductor)
Vasily Barkhatov (Stage Director), Zinovy Margolin (Sets), Olga Shaishmelashvili (Costumes), Alexander Sivayaev (Lighting)
S. Jakubiak (© Brescia e Amisano/Teatro alla Scala)
This season opening was one of the most spectacular inaugurations in La Scala’s history. Instead of a typical nineteenth century Italian opera, a monumental twentieth century Russian masterpiece unveiled the season. It was also notable for being Riccardo Chailly’s last as La Scala’s artistic director. With such a rich work at hand, Chailly and his orchestra didn’t shy from the score’s extremes of lyricism and brutality. Of what Stalin allegedly called “chaos rather than music”, La Scala’s forces drew out magnificently luminous sounds, with a brass band delivering biting sarcasm in the interludes. Chorus master Alberto Malazzi masterfully directed the Coro del Teatro alla Scala, who sounded impressively idiomatic in a language they rarely sing.
When Lady Macbeth of the District of Mtsensk premiered in 1934, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906‑1975) was just twenty‑eight years old, an amazing achievement for such a young man. This production marked an equally impressive accomplishment by another young Russian, stage director Vasily Barkhatov (b.1983) who’s just forty‑two. That such a relatively youthful director is capable of such ingenious staging gives one hope for opera’s future. At a time when mediocre directors are routinely fêted for such horrors as a pedophile Herod in Salome; Lohengrin’s Elsa as a moth; organ smuggling and serial murderers in Carmen; a bisexual Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto; and La bohème on the moon, the reassuring genius of Barkhatov calls for celebration.
One intoxicating aspect of Shostakovich’s opera is its cinematic quality. Barkhatov obviously sensed this, and conceived his staging accordingly. His Lady Macbeth takes place en deux temps, in a narrative recounting the events of the opera. So we glimpse the bored wife; the tyrannical and overbearing father‑in‑law Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov; the impotent husband Zinoviy Borisovich Izmailov; the handsome rascal Sergei, all encircled by events that unfold as if prescribed by destiny. Over this logical and linear narrative, there are short vignettes from a future police inquest, following the sordid discovery of the corpse of Katerina’s husband. The many orchestral interludes make these snapshots from the future (as opposed to flashbacks) seem refreshingly spontaneous and uncontrived.
The idea of superimposing a police investigation over the narrative was appropriate in that Shostakovich’s opera is at its core a biting critique of power, of the bourgeoisie over the working class, of men over women, and of the patriarchy.
Zinovy Margolin’s beautiful sets were a welcome surprise. Based on the homonymous novel by Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov (1831‑1895), the opera takes place in the provincial Imperial Russia of the late nineteenth century. The Art déco backdrop evoked the fin‑de‑siècle Vienna of the Secession group. Rather than a posh home, Barkhatov chose to show an exclusive restaurant, operating as part of the Izmailov’s business empire. That such a fashionable and luxurious place would exist in provincial Russia shows either the exuberant taste of patriarch Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov or his pretentiousness.
The stunning backgrounds were also elaborate, including an upper level in which the kitchen, the underbelly of the establishment, is shown. The restaurant itself has a fetching esplanade on top of which a brass band sporadically played satirically jazzy interludes. A further division at stage left showed either Katerina’s bedroom or the stairwell leading to the kitchen, in addition to an office where Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov could pontificate. Barkhatov’s interrogation scenes, varying from the amusing to the terrifying, as in Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940), also took place there.
The cast was as glorious as the staging, with American soprano Sara Jakubiak a truly incandescent Katerina. Greatly admired in July as The Woman in Schoenberg’s Erwartung in Munich, and as Arabella is Christof Loy’s production in Madrid, Jakubiak is the very definition of a singing actress. Thanks to her great charisma and Barkhatov’s focused directing, one could almost sympathize with Katerina’s sordid character. An utterly amoral being, she embarks on a torrid relationship with the dissolute Sergei after witnessing his attempted rape of the young maid Aksinya, and this, even after she’d been violated by him previously.
Such sordid events almost seem natural, given the young woman’s boredom in the sterile home of her impotent, weak husband. Jakubiak is also endowed with a splendid lyric soprano with facility in the upper register. With that instrument, she easily expresses rapture in lyrical moments, and untold rage, as in the tragic episode with Sonyetka. More than a character reminiscent of Italian Verismo heroines such as Cavalleria rusticana’s Santuzza or Pagliacci’s Nedda, Katerina is a kindred spirit to Janácek’s Káta Kabanová and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; these are infinitely more complex, tragic victims of fate – not mere casualties of monstrous men.
Belarusian bass Alexander Roslavets was a remarkable Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov; his powerful voice matched his overwhelming stage presence. He personified a ruthless businessman, domineering father and family patriarch to a tee. His hapless son could only ever be a weakling, given his father’s imposing shadow.
Russian tenor Yevgeny Akimov played Katerina’s impotent husband Zinoviy Borisovich Izmailov to perfection. Despite his pathetic nature, one almost felt compassion. Barkhatov had him return home from a trip to secretly witness his wife making love to Sergei. He then made his entry official, announcing himself, giving Sergei a chance to hide. This was a brilliant touch, as it rendered him still more pathetic. Akimov used his high tenor to add a nagging quality to Izmailov that was most à propos.
Uzbek tenor Najmiddin Mavlyanov was a towering Sergei. Despite his low station, he was almost naturally seductive, thanks to his animalistic charisma. His virile tenor matched his charisma and contrasted appropriately with Yevgeny Akimov’s high tenor.
Russian mezzo Elena Maximova made the most of her brief role as the female convict Sonyetka. Her petty indulgence in her supremacy over Katerina served two purposes; it showed the brutal effects of tyranny, where victims bully weaker ones, and it made the public feel compassion for a now triply victimized Katerina (by the penitentiary system, by Sergei and now Sonyetka). Maximova’s mezzo superbly contrasted with Jakubiak’s high soprano. Moreover, she sounded as sultry as femme fatale Carmen, a role I’d relish hearing her conquer.
The smaller parts were well-sung and acted. Valery Gilmanov played the parasitic Orthodox priest with panache, personifying a permanent, ineffective drunk. This parody of a man of the cloth is an essential part of Shostakovich’s critique, ridiculing authority.
Katerina, bored out of her wits in the bourgeois household of the Izmailovs, is invigorated by the sordid affair she’s embroiled in with Sergei. A first murder, poisoning her nosy and suspicious father‑in‑law, was deemed necessary to continue her affair. However, the murder of her weak husband was gratuitous, as if the previously “living dead” Katerina had awakened after tasting the intoxicating power of murder. To help us identify with newly monstrous Katerina, Barkhatov has her weak, timid, impotent husband attempt to rape her. Perhaps he was aroused after catching his wife in flagrante, but this is still implausible. Yet it’s effective in having the public condone Katerina’s gruesome crime.
An ingenious device by Barkhatov was the fluidity between scenes, especially from the wedding to the transport of convicts to Siberia. The prisoner’s truck collides into the posh Art déco restaurant to collect the murderous bride and her groom. The tearing down of the decorative wall of the beautiful establishment is as brutal as any rape scene. Unlike lesser directors’ attempts at breaking the fourth wall, Barkhatov lets the shocked bourgeois guests at the wedding remain onstage to witness the opera’s tragic dénouement. This is akin to a flashback into the future, as if the town’s gentry were gossiping of Katerina’s fate. With the snow falling on the truck and the well‑heeled spectators utterly mesmerized, the contrasting theatrical effect was totally natural.
Barkhatov opted for a powerful plot twist for Katerina’s death scene. The rejected Katerina cannot renounce her passion for Sergei, for she’s finally fully alive precisely because of it. The womanizing Sergei sets his sights on another convict, Sonyetka, in the truck transporting the prisoners. She names her price: stockings to keep her warm. The devious Sergei, aware of Katerina’s attachment to him, tricks his partner‑in‑crime into relinquishing her stockings to bandage a feigned wound. In the libretto, a jealous Katerina fights with Sonyetka and pushes her off the truck into the freezing river. She then either falls off accidentally or throws herself into the river. Based on Katerina’s burning passion, Barkhatov has a more spectacular finale. Katerina douses herself with gasoline, follows Sonyetka and embraces her, setting them both ablaze. Obviously body doubles of the two women come running on stage; a fitting end for a bored housewife who came to life through flaming passion. The effect is one of the most spectacular I’ve ever seen onstage.
I suspect I wasn’t alone in my insomnia hours after this powerful performance. Days later, its powerful images remained, as did Jakubiak’s luscious voice and the orchestra’s glorious energy. Shostakovich, a masterful orchestrator, envisioned a huge orchestra for this stunning work, and Chailly didn’t disappoint in his direction thereof. In addition to full strings, woodwinds, brass (even an offstage brass band!), the score calls for flexatone, whip, tam‑tam, glockenspiel, celesta and two harps. Most satisfying of all was discovering director Vasily Barkhatov. My wish for the new year will be to experience more of his brilliant stagings, preferably of works deserving to be more often performed, such as this. The world could use more Shostakovich and Barkhatov.
Ossama el Naggar
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