Photo: Winslow Townson

The first time my partner watched Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” he couldn’t believe that the composer ever thought a Stalinist regime would be pleased with the opera. The “in-your-face” power of the work made him—a (handsome) man whose political convictions ponder between socialism and cowboyism—find endearing that ‘Shosta’ could not see his censoring coming. Even today, there is something too powerful in “Lady Macbeth” that seems almost dangerous, that makes me always wonder “how are we still allowed to watch this opera.” It is powerful art, indeed.

In fact, “Lady Macbeth” is one of those operas that one must watch live. The few studio recordings are great, but it is only in live performances that one can be deafened by the most abrasive bass sounds while submerging oneself in the awkwardness of experiencing the most hyperreal sexual encounter that operatic theater can convey. It is also only in live performances that we can deeply immerse ourselves in the tenderness and lyrical melancholia of Katerina’s soliloquies.

Boston Symphony Orchestra’s production has to address two elephants in the room: how to make an extremely theatrical opera work in a concert version; and, most importantly, how to make a night pleasing both as a concert and a recording session for its upcoming release by Deutsche Grammophon. While the latter will perhaps be answered only by the yellow label’s competent sound engineers, the former is a complex and, as it were, a live question.

The Short End

Let’s start with the worst, the (lack of) stage direction. Even though it is a concert version, in opera, staging is fundamental. The night felt like an “every man or woman for him- or herself” situation. I was surprised to read Benjamin Richter’s name in the program. Either he indicated stage movements and was respected more by the performers of secondary parts than by the night’s protagonists, or he so strongly believed in the power of the musical performances that he thought that even those gestures seemingly most compulsory in light of the score could be conveyed solely by sound waves.

While the Diva of the night, Kristine Opolais, sported the long-lost sleeves of Lady Di’s wedding gown in an intuitive design by Jekaterina Shehurina, the rest of the cast ranged from suits that were fitted comically poorly, Boston’s-mafia-goes-to-church outfits, and a few choices that only Tan France from “Queer Eye” would be able to fix.

The scenic choreography is incongruously modest, especially given the exorbitant demands made by Boris: nobody kneeled, and nobody kissed. This came to seem a strange reticence in an opera where social gestures are an essential instrument for marking aggressive social subordination. The cadaverously yelled voice of the patriarch demands that his subjects perform in a certain way unambiguously mocked by Shostakovich.

The staging’s blatant neglectfulness, nevertheless, shifted one’s perception of some of the most “objectionable” moments of the opera. Let’s take, for example, the musical interlude at the end of act one. When the orchestra comically mimics a sexual encounter, the fully lit hall made everyone look as if they were watching porn with their parents in the room. While tenor Brenden Gunnell looked serious, Opolais did nothing but smile while her ex-husband conducted the sex scene.

Heroes of the Night

Talking about Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra: what a musical reading! I have been lucky to see more than a few performances of “Lady Macbeth,” and they were all remarkable in their ways. But it is hard to imagine a better orchestra than the BSO to play Shostakovich’s music nowadays. Their project of recording all of Shostakovich has led them to a very loud sonority that, though not proper for all repertoire, is essential to uncovering the Russian genius.

In conducting the Russian repertoire, Nelsons rescues the uncomfortable dissonances while not shying away from eventual lyrical moments. A few weeks ago, he elicited an untamed version of the “Rite of Spring,” asking the audience beforehand to please not throw rocks at the orchestra as their counterparts at the universal premiere did. His “Lady Macbeth” shares a similar approach, accepting the work in all its idiosyncrasies, even in its deafening loudness.

The woodwinds and brass—always BSO highlights—were in a state of grace. The trombones’ brays were almost sonic brass knuckles plowing into our ears. It is seriously hard music, but it is also seriously unserious sometimes—and they did both with perfection. And the strings, especially the cello and violin solos performed by Blaise Déjardin, principal celloist and guest concertmaster Nathan Cole, were a perfect encounter with the lyricism so needed in the opera.

Nelsons recently open-ended contract renovation might have turned heads around, but it is certain that he is highly capable when in his repertoire, and the orchestra reacts well.

Kristine Opolais sang Katerina as the exegesis of femininity. By the end of the night, it was more than attested that her Katerina had few doubts about her desirability or her right to be the center of attention. As a result, the character became a bit more of a tragic heroine and less of a psychological study of a distant cousin of Madame Bovary.

Opolais’ voice, significantly more lyrical than the Wagnerian army that has embraced the role in the last few decades, worked well in creating dignifying sounds, especially during the inner monologues that make the character so welcoming. Her pianos are almost spoken, without any vibrato, in a smooth and bright voice that progressively unwraps into a volcanic cornucopia of vibrato in the fortissimos.

Opolais and “Lady Macbeth” are not a match made in heaven, but they are certainly an interesting couple. Her lyrical moments—for example, the tender and almost sublime singing in bed in the second act—pave the way for interpretations that, even though less dramatically complex, make Katerina, if not more likeable, certainly less pathetic than usual.

Her quiet and tender voice sounded more and more threatened by Günther Groissböck as Boris’ looming ubiquitous backstage voice. The louder Boris’ spectral voice sounded, the quieter and weaker Katerina sang—as if we were witnessing the oppressing of a lady that, in another environment, might be capable of being remarkable without murdering anyone.

To be fully honest, I myself enjoy a more ridiculous Katerina; depending on the singers’ acting skill, the role can actually be even more pitiful. If Katerina is a mediocre figure, her tragedy lies precisely in the fact that only her unscrupulous decisions make her someone significant—an unusual path in the history of soprano roles. However, Opolais is aligned with Nelsons’ innovative approach to Shostakovich and does create something new.

To my mind, the success of her performance of femininity reaches its peak when she mourns the death of Boris. In a rather comic moment, Opolais sang it almost as if Katerina believed in the loss of her father-in-law. The irony flourished precisely because it was entirely non-ironical singing. Moreover, in an opera where the insincerity of social conventions is so criticized, it is, to say the least, a kind of revenge to believe that Katerina has mastered the art of social disguise.

Mockery of Sorts

If Opolais represented successful femininity, Brenden Gunnell sang Sergei as a mockery of all possible shades of masculinity. Sergei is a tough role that might not be a “star-making” vehicle for a tenor whose repertoire contains the full range from Wagner to Donizetti. Gunnell, a singer who sang Siegmund a few months ago, emptied Sergei of any charm, making the character as ridiculous as possible. His gestures were delightfully effeminate, making Sergei a case study of the impossible sexual life of the uncharismatic straight man. By Saturday, it was evident that Gunnell was having a lot of fun running away from his more heroic repertoire.

His voice, nevertheless, sounded progressively weary throughout the concert run. While in the dress rehearsal and opening night, he showcased the brightness and rounded quality of his instrument, by the second performance, he seemed a bit out of stamina. To be fair, it is a very heavy orchestral part, and a very hard character to make work. He certainly made people genuinely laugh—no doubt to the despair of DG’s sound engineers.

Assessing Günther Groissböck’s Boris is a tricky task. He is a specialist in bringing a certain sexual attractiveness to characters whose behavior is despicable, to say the least. His Baron Ochs brings to light a form of masculinity often neglected in operatic representation: the gym bro misogynist. Boris is another story. Perhaps because it was a concert version, Groissböck delighted in grimacing as much as is physically possible for a human being. His facial expressions were not charming like Cecilia Bartoli’s, but genuinely concerning and oddly unmusical. Every note he sang looked as if he were on the verge of a nervous meltdown. On the one hand, it was hard to define where to draw the line between characterization and self-indulgent gesticulation. If one chooses to believe it was all in character, Boris is made extremely weak and more violent without the compensations of any imposing gravitas. His voice sounded more opaque than the rest of the cast, and his Russian, impeccable according to my Russian-speaking friends, sounded as if the text were more spoken, if not yelled, than sung. His continuous utterances of power emptied the character of any imaginable sexual charisma. In fact, when he wore himself out lashing Sergei, I wondered if this Boris were meant to display the frustrations of a sexually impotent man.

However, I must say that it took me some goodwill to understand all of Groissböck’s movements as belonging to Boris. In fact, I had a hard time seeing the character at all in the face of a singer who seemed visibly distressed by the huge effort of singing one of the most obnoxious characters in operatic history. Even Scarpia is more charming than Boris.

Nelsons’ heavy orchestral sonority caused some problems for Groissböck’s more spoken and consonantal Boris, though perhaps nothing that cannot be fixed on the studio sound table. And—to be totally fair—the power of Shostakovich’s music was so strong in this performance that it was hard to be indifferent to the textual violence that Groissböck so urgently called forth on stage.

Peter Hoare sang Zinovy with the eminence of a “Salomé’s” Herod. His loud metallic voice even gave some courage to an otherwise despicable character. He seemed so keen to phrase his part elegantly that one might have wondered if he might not perform Sergei someday.

The secondary parts were, for the most part, extremely well-performed and in some instances with much scenic finesse.

Special attention must be given to Anatoli Sivko, chief of police. Extremely operatic in his gesticulations, his voice seemed to embrace a certain tackiness and lack of aesthetic that stressed the corruption within the Imperial police.

Goran Jurić was an immense delight as the priest. With a generous voice—which seemed to struggle only in the extreme bottom of his lower register—, he managed to bring a sense of joy to the performance of social rites, especially the wedding toast scene. It was hard not to laugh even as one admired the refinement of his phrasing.

Alexander Kravets embraced the drunkenness of the shabby peasant. His unashamed exposed belly compensated for his difficulties in being heard, especially in the beginning of the third act.

Last season, when I heard Maria Barakova as Sonyetka in the Met Opera, I immediately wrote her name on my radar list. Her generous voice sounded extraordinary in the Met’s acoustics. Here, in a less singer-friendly hall, she still imposes much power. Her voice has charming inflections; her descending notes are extremely sexy and pure vocal velvet: a serious show-stopper in the fourth act. And, in a production where everyone was speaking good Russian, I felt I understood every word Barakova spoke as if I were a native.

Michelle Trainor sang the sad role of Aksinya well in the first act. Her cries of violence were even more hurtful than usual. And even the powerful voice of Alexandra LoBianco struggled a bit in being heard in the Act four sound castle built by Nelsons.

Finally, a few more pixels must be lit to talk about Patrick Guetti. The bass, who swore that he still wants to be a soprano, had a very small role as the officer and Sentry in the final act. He did not even have to phrase anything, just lower his jaw and sing. But when that voice came out of his towering body, it felt like a pacific earthquake reached Boston. All concertgoers turned their heads to their companions in a common look of amazement. I honestly have never heard a louder instrument in a vocalist. While his vocal skills—besides his large vocal endowment—are as yet unknown to me, it is always refreshing to go to an opera and be shocked that the human voice, sometimes, can be as big as the universe.

Given the few operatic experiences to be had in Boston, it is a special pleasure  to hear one of the hardest operas of the twentieth-century repertoire. “Lady Macbeth” requires an army of singers and a legion of orchestra players. Its loudness certainly audibly impaired many of my friends, and its topics no doubt scandalized the Puritan convictions of many a New Englander—but it was all very worth it. When a tsunami of an opera reaches us, we cannot leave the theater with the same certainties about the repertoire and life as we entered, and for that, I am grateful.