http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/arts/mets-lady-macbeth-of-mtsensk-stars-eva-maria-westbroek.html 2014-11-12 01:00:14 Met’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ Stars Eva-Maria Westbroek Eva-Maria Westbroek stars as a poignantly restless housewife in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s earthy “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” === The libretto of In the director Graham Vick’s audacious, inventive 1994 production for the As the opera progresses, Katerina is driven not just to adultery with a husky laborer, Sergei, but also to killing her father-in-law by feeding him sautéed mushrooms sprinkled with rat poison, and, later, to strangling her husband, Zinovy, when he discovers her in bed with Sergei. But Shostakovich aims to win your sympathy for Katerina. Already, in that opening scene, her vocal lines alternate bursts of chatter with melting lyricism accompanied by subdued, yet nervous orchestra music, a tangle of strings and sighing woodwinds, lines at once wayward and trapped in a musical maze. All of this and more came through in the inspired, incisive and colorful performance that the conductor James Conlon drew from the great Met Orchestra. This production was a high point in Joseph Volpe’s tenure as general manager of the Met. It was good to see him in the house on Monday, basking in some much-deserved credit. The fate of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” at the hands of Stalin and the obsequious officials in his circle is well known. Two years after its momentous 1934 premiere in Leningrad, Stalin attended a performance with some cultural dignitaries and walked out before the final act. Two days later, the work was condemned in a stinging editorial in Pravda. Interestingly, the attack focused less on the content of the opera, including its brazen sexuality, than on the music, the “deliberately dissonant, muddled stream of sounds,” the “grinding, the squealing.” What the Soviet masses really needed was wholesome art, the thinking went. As music critics, Stalin and his henchmen got it half right. Yes, during lurid scenes, especially the aggressive seduction of Katerina by Sergei, the music “quacks, hoots, pants and gasps.” That’s actually a good description. But Shostakovich cuts through the grotesquerie to get at Katerina’s desperation. After that sex scene, she and Sergei, here the muscular tenor The impressive Met choristers, under their director, Donald Palumbo, have been There are orchestral sequences of surreal, grotesque comedy in this opera, and Mr. Vick, working with the choreographer Ron Howell, milks them for zaniness. In one, with music of snarling brass and fractured rhythms, a town drunk chances upon the body of Katerina’s husband, stashed in the trunk of the car, now crushed. The poor man imagines a horde of murderous brides in bloodstained wedding gowns, dancing wildly, knives in hand, some of them played by men in drag. Mr. Jovanovich The tenor Raymond Very brings a sturdy voice to the role of Zinovy, the husband, and conveys the character’s impotence: He cannot make his wife pregnant. Among many standouts in smaller roles are Allan Glassman as a shabby, drunken peasant, and Mikhail Kolelishvili as a cartoonish priest. But Ms. Westbroek dominates, as Katerina must. Though best known for creating the title role in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The final scene is bleakly tragic. Katerina and Sergei, arrested for the murder of Zinovy, are prisoners en route to Siberia. Sergei, now bored with Katerina, finds diversion with an alluring convict, Sonyetka (Oksana Volkova). At the end, in despair, Katerina drowns herself in a lake, dragging her rival with her. At least that is what the libretto indicates. In this version, pulling Sonyetka along, she jumps into a pit filled with what seems to be the contents of slop buckets from outhouses. It’s one of Mr. Vick’s more heavy-handed touches, but certainly effective.