Customer Reviews

Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk / Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya, Gedda, London Philharmonic

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This performance is not original, but based on an abbreviated version of the Rostropovich/Vishnevskaya recording, the only one available. This score is one of the masterpieces of the 20th Century, a magnificent work. The movie brings it down to 100 minutes, presumably for manageable length. Anyone expecting to hear the whole score is going to be disappointed, but so what? This is not an opera that is frequently performed even in opera houses, so I'm grateful to the director for what there is.

Time Magazine, reviewing the opera at its Met premiere in 1934, referred to the music in the love/rape scenes as `pornophony'. The director certainly got that right. The prudish or the parents of a muscially gifted minor should be warned that these scenes leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. As both actors are attractive and the action is indicated in the music (Time was absolutely right), I found these scenes appropriate and interesting, as well as erotic.

The negative occurs in the staging of the finale. These must be the best dressed, most humanely treated Siberian exiles in history. No chains, no prison garb, none of the degradation of mind and spirit that motivates the heroine's suicide. The criticism here is precisely the opposite of the praise of the intimate scenes, that the staging and music do not match. All the more puzzling, as the scene is set out of doors and realism could have been easily achieved.

All in all, people who like the opera, who are fascinated by Shostakovich, or who simply want an approachable version of an masterpiece should have this disc. You're not likely to get another, and what's good in it is very good. The reviewer above who described this work musically as mediocre is not worthy of credence. Even the edited version here is musically superb.

This disc is not for everyone, but it may be just the thing for some. What's not clear until you pop it in the player is that the audio is essentially just the 1979 (?) Rostropovich/Vishnevskaya recording of the opera, so if you leave the TV off you essentially have a one-disc copy of that recording ... which I didn't, and so I am delighted with it on that basis alone. Turn on the set however, and things get wild. Director Petr Weigl has taken a cast of Czechs who may or may not have musical backgrounds, including a voluptuous and otherwise easy-on-the-eyes heroine, and had them lip-synch along with the recording in costume and on sets suggesting pre-Revolutionary Russia. The lip-synching isn't quite as laughable as some of the old Godzilla movies, but it's not always completely accurate and convincing, either. Added to that is the fact that Vishnevskaya's dusky, mature voice seems to be inappropriate to the twentysomething girl from whom it is supposedly emanating. But of course, none of that matters as soon as the sex gets started. I've never seen this opera staged, but I imagine that the ravishing is more "suggested" in the theatre, whereas here it's simulated explicitly, if not clinically, with lots of nudity and thrashing about. I'm reluctant to speculate about whether the late composer would have been more amused or annoyed by this video, probably dismissing it in either case as tasteless; more interesting is the question of what his still-very-much-alive close friends, Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, might make of it.

I found this video, of actors lip-synching to the Vishnevskaya/Rostropovich recording of the opera, to be very interesting in a number of ways, but also a bit disappointing. On the plus side, the actors are certainly not shy, with full frontal nudity of both men and women in the crucial sex scenes, which are energetic, to say the least. Katerina, the central character of the opera, is gorgeous, and emotes very well. On the minus side, the translations given in the subtitles are not always reliable, with some translations actually giving an opposite meaning to the sung text. There are large cuts, as the film runs only 100 minutes, but interest is maintained throughout. I thought the ending was anticlimactic in the extreme, and was somewhat disappointed. Overall, the film is a must for devoted fans of Dmitri Shostakovich, but I am still waiting for a definitive filmed version, which I believe we all deserve!

Shostakovitch's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a masterpiece. A previous movie had been made of it, less effective than this one. Petr Weigl film is nice to watch but has a major drawback: more than 50 minutes of the score are cut. Whichever may have been the rationale for such choice, it is hardly understandable. Due to some of the cuts, the sequence of the plot even becomes somewhat strange because you feel that something must surely be missing in the action. Leaving out scenes like the Boris' ghost scene is unforgivable - this scene clearly shows that Katerina is haunted by the spirit of the man she killed (establishing the connection with Shakespeare's Macbeth and Verdi's opera). So, to me, due maily to the cuts but also to some dubious director's choices, this movie rates very low. Unfortunate, but true, considering that it could easily have been otherwise. Respecting the whole score, for instance, would have done a much better job.

I have been an unabashed fan of Petr Weigl even since I obtained his productions of "Eugene Onegin", "The Turn of the Screw", "A Village Romeo and Juliet" in VHS format (all, alas, delisted).

Cinematic interpretations of operas are, I believe, another artistic approach to these works. Even the live performance recordings come close to this freedom with elaborate sets and camera play. Admittedly Weigl tends to abridge and perhaps offends the purists, but he does end up with a very tight production. (After all, even in live productions, cuts are often made -- sometimes for no greater reason than to avoid paying overtime.

Opera is theatre and Weigl brings it all to life. His actors all look the part, can really act, and do more than lip-synch -- they sing on the set, although their voices are not used. Most importantly, he has a great sense of setting, costumes, and camera angles.

Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk is a very vivid, emotional, opera. I understand that Shostakovitch planned it to be the first of three about the plight of Russian women through the ages. Unfortunately, Stalin had a hissy fit and Shostakovitch wrote no more operas.

This production does great justice to the work. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I think this is a very successful interpretation of the book by an obviously obscured to western audiences Russian writer Leskov. Although the purists would abhor some cuts in the opera itself, I think the singing and acting convey very well the primordial desire. Katerina never regretted the killing of her husband, according to the book - she was totally consumed by her lust to Sergei. And she despised her life in her husband's family. I give this work credit for the freedom of the artistic representation - Shostakovich did not follow the book to the last letter, so the creator of this film did not do it to his complete score, too. The perception of this work depends on a personal taste, as everything else, but I liked that the torment of Russian soul was there, and the film was generally quite successful in showing Russian way of life. I also liked that it was graphic enough for the theme, and also the actors looked credible for their roles. After all, this is a movie, not a recording of a real opera performance, and in the movie/opera hybrid I believe it was very successful. If you compare the realism of this DVD to another one, Khovanschina, you'll see the difference. At least for me, as a Russian, this is evident. I would recommend this DVD. The singing is magnificent.

Another reviewer here mentioned that the DVD costs less than the price of the audio CDs. That's true, but please be aware that the DVD version is significantly cut: the audio CDs run to 154 mins., whereas the DVD presentation is only 100 mins. So if you want to hear this recording in full - and I recommend that you do - you'll need to buy the CDs.

The director "smoothes over" Shostakovich's 4 act structure in an attempt to create a single dramatic and cinematic arc. This is the source of many of the cuts, but others I don't understand. Surely the appearance of Boris' ghost in Katya's bedroom could have been effectively filmed, yet it's not in in the DVD.

Enjoyable nonetheless, with reservations.

This movie features (most of) the soundtrack of the best recording of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk available. The film which was (twenty odd years later) slapped on top of that brilliant sound recording, served little other purpose than as a vehicle for once-locally-famous Czech soft porn actress and media-slag (Hrubesova).

It's so tacky and has such a cheesy video-look that it makes the sound recording seem mediocre, where taken on its own, it's brilliant. Shostakovich's opera includes some violence and sex which does appear on stage in live performances. In this film it looks like some sort of pseudo-artsy and highly unbelievable soft porn flick. To give an example, the fat woman who gets raped (they show it with dim warm lighting) acts like she is being tickled with a feather, which is not the idea that the score portrays. There are also a lot of very '90's looking men with really the sort of buffed symetrical appearance you get from working in a gym, and not the rugged look you'd have among people who perform manual labour all day. Or in the bedroom scene with Katerina and Sergei - their textbook writhings allow embarrasing glimpses at the one part of Sergei which should (judging by Hrubesova's movement) be most 'involved', but which we clearly see in an entirely different condition and nowhere near where it would have to be to cause the effect she is displaying. You can also see a little piece of cloth between them sometimes, when clearly nothing of that sort is meant to be there. Fair enough, the cloth is there even if you don't see it, but the fact that all this is shown makes their 'beast with two backs' act seem ridiculous and insulting. It's actually a matter of bad editing (and bad taste). It doesn't add up, and even absent-mindedly making little mental notes of these inconsistencies is a somewhat unpleasant experience, again, especially because what the music itself conveys is so clearly real.

As another viewer with me said, 'if they're going to be so literal in showing them at it, they should at least have edited out the bit of cloth between them'. This paradox of it being too literal and too fake at once applies not just to the sex scenes, but to the whole film in general. It's rather insulting really in how fake it is. The film as a whole is just so cheap and lacks the tight and oppressive atmosphere of the score.

The CD of the complete opera is available from amazon.com and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Vishnevskaya is miraculous, and the conducting by her husband Rostropovich (both personal friends of the composer) is inspired. Rostropovich and Shostakovich studied composition together, and although not all of Rostropovich's recordings of Shostakovich are first rate, this is the definitive (and most alive) rendition. It probably always will be. Buy the CD, and pass up on the DVD.

Although parts of the score and Boris' ghost were cut, this was a decent rendition of Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk. The movie featured wonderful singing (despite the obvious lip synching) and the actors were well suited for their respective parts.

Purists will dislike this DVD because it edits the content of Shostakovich's original opera. However, I took the DVD for what it's worth in its own right, and I think it's in all ways fantastic. The acting is superb, the music is breathtaking, and the film as a whole is well directed. The sex scenes, when coupled with the music, are practically nerve-racking in their intensity.