M&V: Shostakovich's Shocker
un...@mvdaily.com
'As stage director, Martin Kusej has taken orgasm and murder as the
linchpins of his production. There is no concern here for what
consenting adults might get up to in private. Most of the action takes
place in a rectangular glass house that can only incite the cast to
throw as many stones at each other as they can grab. It is the
frustration of Katerina Macbeth that sparks the action. If her brute
of a father-in-law and sadly inadequate husband have to be murdered in
the cause of sexual gratification, so be it. The tragedy is that her
factory pick-up is as worthless as the men she has despatched with the
aid of rat-poison (a very Russian ploy, it would seem) and the use as
hammer of a candlestick.'
- an extract from Robert Anderson's illustrated review of the recent
Netherlands Opera/Opus Arte DVD of Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk' in today's Music & Vision Magazine