Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cBoris Godunov<\/a> ” at the theater best known for its Italian repertoire. <\/p>\n\u2018\u2018Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,\u2019\u2019 Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. \u201cShostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin’s own.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
An American soprano makes her La Scala Debut<\/p>\n
American soprano Sara Jakubiak made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she dies. It\u2019s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich’s Katerina is full of challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I\u2019m a murderess, that I\u2019m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,\u2019\u2019 Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. \u201cYou go, \u2018Oh my gosh, how will I do this?\u2019 But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we\u2019re just going to go for the ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was \u201csqueezing\u201d Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever I prepare a role, it\u2019s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,” she said. \u201cFirst, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we\u2019re actually somewhat similar in that regard.”<\/p>\n
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony. <\/p>\n
Stage direction highlights Stalin’s end<\/p>\n
Barkhatov, who at 42 has has a flourishing international career, said \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d is a \u201cvery brave and exciting” choice.<\/p>\n
Barkhatov’s stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin\u2019s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.<\/p>\n
For Barkhatov, Stalin\u2019s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place.<\/p>\n
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as \u201ca weird \u2026 breakthrough to happiness and freedom.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,\u2019\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2013 Milan\u2019s storied Teatro alla Scala celebrated its gala season premiere Sunday with a Russian opera for the second time since Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But this year, instead of drawing protests for showcasing the invader\u2019s culture, a flash mob demonstrated for peace. La Scala\u2019s music director Riccardo Chailly conducted Dmitry Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2190294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[422773,21741,417548,422772,422770,422771,422775,422774,22816,22814],"class_list":["post-2190293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dmitry-shostakovich","tag-entertainment","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-modest-mussorgsky","tag-riccardo-chailly","tag-sara-jakubiak","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-vasily-barkhatov","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-flash-mob-waves-Ukrainian-flags-as-La-Scala-features.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2190295,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190293\/revisions\/2190295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2190294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}