Opera in four acts
Musicby Dmitri Shostakovich
Libretto by PREIS and THE COMPOSER after LESKOV
(sung in Russian: records)
The highly acclaimed new recording of Shostakovich's second opera in its original version, banned by Stalin in 1936 and better known, until this recording, in its 1963 revision Katerina Ismailova. It concerns a married woman, rich but bored and lonely, who commits murder twice for the sake of her lover, but is eventually driven to suicide because of his infidelity.
Katerina Ismailova
CALINA VISHNEVSKAYA
(soprano)
Boris Timofeyevich. her father-in-law
DIMITER PETKOV (bass)
Zinovy Borisovich , Katerina's husband
WERNER KRENN (tenor)
Sergei, a newly-hired workman, later Katerina's lover
NICOLAI GEDDA aenor)
Shabby peasant
ROBERT TEAR (tenor)
Aksinya, a servant girl
TARU VALJAKKA (soprano)
Teacher
MARTYN HILL (tenor)
Priest
LEONARD MROZ (bass)
Police sergeant
AAGE HAUGLAND (bass)
Sonyetka, a young female convict
BIRGIT FINNIL Ä (soprano)
SOLOISTS
AMBROSIAN OPERA CHORUS LONDON PHILHARMONIC orchestra, conducted by MSTISLAV ROSTBOPOVICH Act 1