Original image of DVD booklet by There Stands the Glass.
Dmitri Shostakovich recently instigated an unpleasant exchange in my home. More accurately, my insistence on playing the composer’s clamorous opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” at maximum volume was met by a reasonable request to turn it down. I responded with wildly inappropriate sass.
Aware of Joseph Stalin’s condemnation of the opera in 1936- criticism that endangered Shostakovich’s life- I compared my life partner to the murderous Russian. It wasn’t my best moment.
I’d like to blame my abhorrent behavior on my passion for the opera. The library loan of an unflinching 2006 production was my first experience with the work. (Here’s a representative four-minute clip featuring Eva-Maria Westbrook in the title role.) Shostakovich’s portrayal of inhumanity coarsened me. Stalin may have been on to something.