Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, English National Opera, review: 'a musically powerful achievement'

Discussion of Shostakovich's major opera always focuses on the fact that it was denounced and effectively banned by Stalin, who was disconcerted by its brutal candour and moral ambiguity.

Yet today its most problematic aspect is its lurch between cynical satire and high tragedy – asking us to view the titular figure first as a cartoon cut-out of a desperate housewife driven to murder by exasperated boredom, then as the pitiable victim of a benighted society.

Dmitri Tcherniakov, one of a breed of directors normally associated with scandalous rumpus, takes a relatively low-key approach, ignoring the dimension of black Gogolian farce and presenting an almost naturalistic case of common-or-garden sexual frustration and jealousy.

He sets the opera in a modern strip-lit warehouse, next to which Katerina and her dreary husband live in a room covered with Turkish carpets – an environment which, along with Katerina’s folklorish costume, suggests her alienation from the banal goings-on of the drunken drones she lords it over.

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Aside from this uncontroversial departure from the libretto and a last scene staged in a police cell rather than on a convict march, Tcherniakov plays it pretty straight, drawing sensitively acted and detailed performances from his excellent cast.

Up to a point, the strategy works well – but in the process Katerina is sentimentalised (her monicker is Lady Macbeth, after all, not Madame Bovary) and without  the bitter laughter at the idiocy of life that was so fundamental to Shostakovich’s mentality, the effect is a bit flat and colourless – opera in the manner of television drama.

Singing sturdily and steadily, Patricia Racette makes a touching Katerina, perhaps too gentle for someone so deeply implicated in violent crime, while Robert Hayward, Peter Hoare and John Daszak project robustly as the moronic men who drive her to destruction.

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But the evening's outstanding feature is the absolutely magnificent chorus and orchestra – both of them currently vulnerable to draconian cuts to ENO's budget. Incoming Music Director Mark Wigglesworth conducts them in a masterly interpretation marked by extreme contrasts between silken sensuous pianissimi and boilingly thunderous fortissimi. The playing is as good as anything in London.

Stuffed with extras, this must be an expensive show to stage and I doubt it will cause the much-needed stampede for the box office. But it's nevertheless a musically powerful achievement of which the new régime can be proud. 

Until October 20; tickets 020 7845 9300 or eno.org