Alexander Kravets

On the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death, La Scala opens the Season with his masterpiece Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, based on the novella by Nikolai Leskov. After its premiere in St. Petersburg, the opera – which was intended to be the first part of a trilogy on women’s condition in Russia – enjoyed great success at home and abroad. Stalin attended a performance in Moscow in 1936; two days later, the famous denunciation titled “Chaos Instead of Music” appeared in Pravda, through which the regime blacklisted the opera and its composer. Years later, Shostakovich prepared a new version that was staged in Moscow in 1963 under the title Katerina Izmailova, after Superintendent Ghiringhelli had unsuccessfully tried to secure its premiere for La Scala. Today, the theatre presents the original 1934 version, conducted by M° Chailly and the debut of director Barkhatov.

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Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla continues her high-profile championship of the works of the composer Mieczysław Weinberg with this new Salzburg Festival production of his final opera, The Idiot, with a libretto based on Dostoevsky’s great novel of innocence destroyed by corrupt society. Featuring music of great power and intensity, the opera, completed in 1985, showcases Weinberg’s remarkable skill as a musical dramatist, while this new production by Krzysztof Warlikowski promises to mark a watershed in its brief performance history.

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At a glittering party in 18th-century Paris, the poet Andréa Chenier delivers an impassioned denunciation of Louis XVI. Five years later, the Revolution has given way to the Terror, transforming the power balance between Chénier, his beloved Maddalena, and Gérard, the man who could destroy him...

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In the court of Princess Turandot, suitors who fail to solve her riddles are brutally killed. But when a mysterious Prince answers correctly, suddenly he holds all the power – and a glorious secret. When life hangs in the balance, can love conquer all?

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Tsar Saltan marries the youngest of three sisters, having heard that it is her dearest wish to present him with a heroic son and heir. Her jealous sisters and the old Aunt Barbaricha cannot bear this situation to persist and by trickery see to it that the Tsaritsa and her newborn son Gvidon are thrown into the sea. In their barrel they are washed ashore on an enchanted island where the rapidly growing tsar’s son saves a swan from the clutches of a wizard. In gratitude, the swan helps Gvidon to visit his native country once again in the guise of a bumblebee. Three wishes, three miracles and three bee-stings later, father and son are finally able to get to know each other.

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The dark world of Tchaikovsky’s penultimate operatic masterpiece Queen of Spades hinges on obsession, greed, and a secret in winning at cards… In 2005, the Opéra Bastille mounted a compelling production featuring Vladimir Galouzine as the mad lover Hermann, Hasmik Papian as the doomed Lisa, and Irina Bogatcheva as the mysterious Comtesse.

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Posthumously premiered in 1930, From the House of the Dead derives from Dostoevsky’s autobiographical 1862 novel that drew on his experience as a political prisoner in Siberia. Janáček focuses on Dostoevsky’s idea of the “spark of God” in every human being that has the potential to redeem even the most hardened criminal.

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‘A beautiful song – a shame that it shows such disrespect to the Mayor!’ This remark from the score of The Golden Cockerel highlights the delicious ambiguity of this work. Principally inspired by Washington Irving and Pushkin, Rimsky-Korsakov called on the talents of Vladimir Belsky, an author of other libretti of a fairy-tale, legendary nature and an expert on Russian folk literature. The composer, a genius at orchestration, has given us sparkling music, with oriental touches, that creates fully rounded characters. This is the perfect occasion for Alain Altinoglu to direct his first opera in his new role as Music Director of La Monnaie. After the success of his Don Quichotte and Cendrillon, Laurent Pelly returns to La Monnaie to stage this exuberant political satire, an adventure in unrestrained rhythm. More than a century has passed since its first performance, yet the opera has lost none of its boisterous sarcasm.

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Barrie Kosky makes his Royal Opera debut with a new production of Shostakovich’s surrealist satire, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and translated by David Pountney.

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