Stalin was so sickened by the sex, violence and satire in Shostakovich’s opera ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’, that he ordered it to be pulled from the repertoire and condemned. Maybe he was right. A masterpiece which creates sympathy for a triple-murderess-adulterer isn’t the kind of art to help build the Soviet utopia Stalin had in mind.The generally solid new production at the English National Opera isn’t always as clear as it might be, but the performances and conducting generate all the excitement and horror they should. Patricia Racette is dazzling as Katerina, the brutalized and downtrodden merchant’s wife of the title who murders her husband and father-in-law to be with her lover.Her voice soars with passion, her sound is warm and enticing, and her acting full of humanity and pathos. Tenor John Daszak is terrific too as her lover Sergei, and brings both a huge voice and swaggering machismo to the role. Conductor Mark Wigglesworth drives the score with real fire, though he doesn’t quite capture the delicate tenderness or scabrous humour which it contains.The production is by Dmitri Tcherniakov, a curious director whose work is often as frustrating as it is exciting. Here he places the action in a modern provincial warehouse, and does a wonderful job at showing both the constrained boredom of Katerina’s life, and the ghastly brutality of her father-in-law Boris (an excellent Robert Hayward.) But – as so often with Tcherniakov – certain basic principles of stage-direction seem to elude him.He sets the final scene (which Shostakovich imagined in a convict camp near a river) in a tiny prison cell. It means that the many characters who usually appear in the scene have to be off-stage, and only their voices are heard. It’s utterly confusing and looks woefully amateurish. It’s a disappointing climax to an otherwise involving show.Farinelli and the KingClare van Kampen’s play, which stars her husband Mark Rylance (‘Wolf Hall’), transfers from the tiny candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse to the Duke of York’s theatre in the West End.Rylance plays King Philippe V of Spain, the mentally unstable monarch who became obsessed with the singing of Farinelli, the greatest castrato of his age. Van Kampen’s play looks at the power – and the limits - of music to heal and inspire. The split role of Farinelli is acted by Sam Crane, and sung by the superb countertenor Iestyn Davies (although other singers take over on some nights).It has beautiful period costumes, a candle-lit set, arias by Handel, and a rave-reviewed performance from Rylance on top form. Even Stalin might have approved.
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