The Teatro alla Scala will commence its upcoming lyrical season on december 7 with a performance of “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district” by Dmitri Shostakóvich, a work famously censored by the Soviet regime. This declaration was made by theater superintendent, Fortunato Ortombina.

According to Ortombina, Shostakovich’s opera “is one of the most notable works of the twentieth century and houses all the suffering of a persecuted man as Shostakóvich.” He made this statement at a press conference presenting the 2025-2026 season.

continuing a long-standing tradition, the season will open on the evening of December 7, the Fiesta de San Ambrosio. The chosen opera is the same composition that Shostakóvich premiered in 1934, inspired by Nikolai Leskov’s novel of the same name.

shostakovich, known for his satirical opera “La Nose”, which debuted in 1830, portrays Katerina Ismailova, an “antiheroin” trapped in a marriage to an impotent man and dominated by her overbearing father-in-law. To escape her familial and sexual constraints, she becomes entangled in a series of crimes.

Initially, the opera was met with considerable acclaim in Leningrad (now st. Petersburg). however,its success was short-lived,as it soon faced censorship from Soviet authorities,including Joseph Stalin.

An anonymous critique published in January 1936 in “Pravda,” the Communist Party’s official newspaper, condemned the opera as a “strident failure.” The article accused Shostakovich of embracing the “chaos of jazz” and pandering to the “perverted tastes of the bourgeois public.”

As a result, “Lady Macbeth Macbeth” was banned and remained unperformed for 26 years.It wasn’t until 1963,a decade after Stalin’s death,that Shostakovich presented a revised version in Moscow.

la Scala’s decision to stage the original version, the one that provoked Stalin’s ire, serves as a reminder of the “intense relations,” often shrouded in secrecy, between italy in the 1950s and the Soviet Union.

Ortombina noted that “Doctor zivago” was first printed in Milan in 1957. He also revealed the discovery of a letter in the archives from Francesco Siciliani, then director of La Scala, to Shostakóvich, in which Siciliani “begged him” to allow La Scala to host the premiere of the second version of “Lady Macbetch.”

Performance Details and Artistic Direction

“It is indeed one of the most significant works of the twentieth century and houses all the suffering of a persecuted man as Shostakóvich.”

Riccardo Chailly, who has conducted the opening performance for the past twelve seasons, will conclude his tenure with this production. The opera will be directed by Vasily Barkhatov, with soprano Sara Jakubiak in the lead role.

Giuseppe Sala, president of the La Scala Foundation and mayor of Milan, emphasized that the selection of this opera is intended as “a complaint against oppression and a defense of freedom of expression.”

The concert program will commence with the return of Daniel Barenboim, while the ballet season will begin with Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” (1890).