Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Shostakovich's lurid opera of sex, violence, and murder, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, is famous for being banned by personal decree of Joseph Stalin in 1936. Dramatically revived by Shostakovich's close friend, the cellist and Soviet emigre Mstislav Rostropovich in 1979, Lady Macbeth is now an international hit. In the first-ever study of this beloved but still-controversial opera, Pauline Fairclough ...