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Meet one of opera’s most unforgettable characters, Katerina Ismailova, in the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s (BSO) concert performance of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The BSO’s remarkable history with Shostakovich’s music dates back to the composer’s lifetime, and in recent years has included multiple Grammy Award–winning recordings and season highlights at Carnegie Hall. Of his “intimate relationship with [Shostakovich’s] music,” Music Director and Conductor Andris Nelsons says, “I feel like I know him, in a mystical way.” There’s no better way to hear this music than with the BSO at Carnegie Hall.

EPSG:4326

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Carnegie Hall

This performance is the most ambitious endeavor in the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ multi-year survey of the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, just as Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was an immense undertaking for its 24-year-old composer. Shostakovich began the score in late 1930, basing it on Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella of the same name; the story is a dark portrayal of Katerina Ismailova, the oppressed, ambitious, and ultimately murderous wife of a provincial merchant. The opera was a worldwide sensation following its 1934 premiere, but after Josef Stalin attended a performance in January 1936, an unsigned Pravda editorial titled “Muddle instead of Music” unequivocally damned the piece and put Shostakovich in real danger. The composer responded by hastily writing the ostensibly heroic, triumphant Fifth Symphony, thus surviving the first of many confrontations with Stalin and the Soviet regime.

Kristine Opolais

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Events

Past events

Jan 30, 2024

Boston Symphony Orchestra · Carnegie Hall

23 - 27 Jan, 2024

Andris Nelsons conducts Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Boston Symphony Orchestra

Future and recently performed repertoire

Katerina Izmailova in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Boston Symphony Orchestra

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