Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:02:14.818Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The New Woman’: Lady Macbeth and sexual politics in the Stalinist era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2002

ELIZABETH A. WELLS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District became extraordinarily infamous after its damnation by Pravda in 1936. The amount of violence and sex in the opera distinguishes it from the Leskov novella on which it was based, and seems to have underpinned Stalin's disapproval. The complex relation between Shostakovich's detailed representation of sexuality and his portrait of Katerina, the opera's tragic heroine, mirrors the social tensions of the sexual revolution and the conservative backlash of the 1920s and 1930s. The writings of feminist Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) about the new Soviet woman display striking similarities to Shostakovich's portrayal of his female characters and offer a context for his approach.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 2001 , pp. 163 - 189
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)