Questionable morels: Lady Macbeth in Leipzig

The Gewandhaus and Oper Leipzig stand facing each other across Augustusplatz, barely 350m apart. The Gewandhausorchester is the pit band for the opera, but Andris Nelsons, Gewandhauskapellmeister since 2017, had never conducted in the opera house, making his debut one of the hottest tickets in this month’s Shostakovich Festival. The opera: Shostakovich’s most famous, the work that scandalised Stalin, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The murderous Katerina Izmailova: Kristine Opolais, also making her Oper Leipzig debut. Both made their mark on a superb evening.

Last year, Francisco Negrin’s new production replaced the ancient Joachim Herz staging (1965) of the revision Shostakovich made – Katerina Izmailova – once the original had been banned. Only a few houses, notably the Bolshoi Theatre, retain the revised version.

The frontcloth has a very 1930s Soviet poster feel, but it lifts to present a folkloristic scene: Rifail Ajdarpasic’s set features a stylised mill, the downtrodden employees in costumes (Ariane Isabell Unfried) made from flour sacks. The wealthy – merchant Boris Izmailov, his son, Zinovy, and daughter-in-law Katerina – wear royal blue. Dominating the set is a giant Fabergé egg, emblematic of both fertility and the aristocracy, which Opolais’ bored housewife Katerina smashes out of frustration at her sterile marriage. Well, you can’t make an omelette without etc.

Negrin doesn’t do anything outlandish, although the ghost of Boris, killed when Katerina laces his mushrooms with poison, as a giant rat is a nicely surreal touch. He also has the policemen wearing pig masks, but if you’re going to give your porcine constabulary Kosky-esque choreography, it needs to be better rehearsed than here.

After Boris’ death, one murder leads to another and we’re deep into Shakespearean territory. There is no love, only lust; no hope, only delusion. The action becomes stripped to its bare bones. The set gradually deconstructs and becomes more abstract, the stage opening up to create the cellar where the corpse of Katerina’s murdered husband Zinovy is winched, widening further to become the icy river next to where the convicted Katerina and Sergey and their fellow prisoners camp en route to Siberia. By the end, Opolais’ Katerina hovers on a suspended platform over the desolate, misty waters, bags of flour suspended above her, as she is eventually submerged beneath the massed chorus.

In his opera, Shostakovich satirises everything – landowners, church, police – but never Katerina. Negrin doesn’t fall into that trap either, aided by a commanding central performance from Opolais. At times her soprano sounded frayed – more citric than silver – but she threw herself into the role in best Galina Vishnevskaya fashion, making you believe in both her boredom and her passion, ignited by a sex scene with Pavel Černoch’s Sergey where the energetic action very nearly matched Shostakovich’s graphic soundtrack. The Latvian soprano also made you believe in Katerina’s vulnerability – she capitulated as soon as the police turned up uninvited to her wedding – and in the final nihilistic scene, Opolais held the entire stage in a haunting monologue.

Černoch’s virile tenor suited the thrusting Sergey, turning sullen as the relationship wanes, before warming ardently to Sonyetka instead. Dmitry Belosselskiy was massively impressive as the leering, mushroom-loving Boris, a man of questionable morels (indulge me: at least I didn’t go with a fungi gag). His booming bass resounded around the house with ease. Oper Leipzig ensemble members impressed in smaller roles, particularly Matthias Stier’s plangent Zinovy, Peter Dolinšek‘s flinty Old Convict and Nora Steuerwald’s fruity Sonyetka.

The other real star turn came from Nelsons. He’s not one to race through Shostakovich’s score, but delights in its satirical sting, abetted by the extra Gewandhaus brass being placed in the opera house’s two boxes over the Parkett, offering the sort of wide stereo cacophony that probably pissed off Stalin. The interludes were often outrageously good fun. Piquant woodwinds offered their own satirical commentary in a performance that stressed the grotesque to telling effect.

Nelsons is a very fine opera conductor, once touted to be the next Music Director at Covent Garden. Let’s hope Oper Leipzig can tempt him back into their pit soon.

Mark's accommodation was funded by Leipzig Tourism