giovedì 30 aprile 2009

From 1966 film by Mikhail Shapiro of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera 'Katerina Izmailova' (the revised version of Lady McBeth of Mtsensk District).
The great Russian dramatic soprano, Galina Vishnevskaya, both sings and acts as Katerina Izmailova.
This is from Act I; after having a run in with the handsome new worker, Sergei, with her boring husband away on a business, Katerina is tired of her meaningless existence and longs for passion in her life... Zherebyonok k kobilke toropitsya.
Konstantin Simeonov conducting the Orchestra of the Shevchenko Opera & Ballet Theatre, Kiev.
If you enjoy this short clip, buy the Decca Label dvd of 'Katerina Izmailova'.
Very little of Vishnevskaya's performance during the Soviet era was preserved since all records of her in the USSR were systematically erased after her and her husband, Mtislav Rostropovich, were forced into exile for housing Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at their dacha while he wrote all those great anti-Soviet books.
A crying shame!!

Nessun commento: