Culture - No Parental Controls

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
~Karl Marx

Sometimes, I’m just not sure how much to read into certain things. Taking things too literally is a pitfall of trying to understand another culture, and attempting to exam things more deeply can lead to even more distorted views. I had a cultural experience the other night that, given the strange historical circumstances, might just be a very realistic look at two ugly periods in history.

On Monday, I attended the Bolshoi Theater’s production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. It’s quite a powerful opera by Shostakovich, with moving imagery made all the more potent by a rather spare set. But if there was every any doubt about the dark nature of Russian story-telling, it should be put to rest after an airing of this opera. It includes a poisoning among its several murders. In addition, there are 2 gang rape sequences, one regular rape, adultery, a vicious flogging, 2 drownings, several brutal beatings, beatings with rifle butts, imprisonment and exile, and bribery, drunkenness and lechery among the clergy. And those are just the parts that I understood.

In comparison, Lady Macbeth makes Italian opera - with its star-crossed couples, unrequited love, and occasional suicides - seem positively cheery.

Life in the Russian village is well documented, and indeed the genesis of this opera is a much earlier story from the 19th century. But the part that makes this all so haunting is the nearly as sensational story of how the opera was received when it debuted.

The Leningrad premiere in 1934 was a critical and popular success. Indeed, it was hailed as a masterpiece of Marxist theater. After all, it laid bare the corruption and rot of provincial life under the l’ancien regime.

The Moscow premiere in 1936, however, was a different story entirely. Stalin stormed out of the production halfway through, roundly denouncing the work. In fact, he used the opera as a pre-text for a general attack on the arts and demanded total control of all creative endeavors in the Soviet Union. Shostakovich, not without just worry, was quite convinced that he had bought himself a one-way ticket to a Siberian gulag. He managed to remain “free”, but was routinely subjected to reprisals and condemnation in the press.

Though he outlived Stalin by some 22 years, Shostakovich never wrote another opera. All he could manage to do was edit Lady Macbeth over and over again. Now, there are several versions of the opera, each favored by certain companies in certain countries.

But just imagine the purgatory that Shostakovich endured. He spent nearly 40 years atoning for his sins against Stalin by continuously tinkering with the opera that nearly did him in.

It wasn’t exactly a Valentine’s Day heart warmer. More like something that chills your soul. Still, it was great theater nonetheless.