Which opera by Dmitri Shostakovich was adapted from Nikolai Leskov’s novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District?

Dmitri Shostakovich adapted Nikolai Leskov’s novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District into the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

The opera premiered in Leningrad on 22 January 1934. Shostakovich wrote the music, while he and Alexander Preis prepared the Russian libretto. Its plot follows Katerina Izmailova, a merchant’s wife who becomes involved in murder and an adulterous relationship.

The work initially received substantial acclaim in the Soviet Union and abroad. Its fate changed after Joseph Stalin attended a performance in Moscow in 1936. An unsigned Pravda editorial titled “Muddle Instead of Music” condemned the opera, and it was withdrawn from Soviet stages for many years.

The title is sometimes shortened to Lady Macbeth, but it does not retell Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The connection is thematic: both works center on a woman involved in murder and power. Shostakovich’s opera uses a modernist musical language and stark theatrical contrasts, while Leskov’s source is a nineteenth-century Russian literary work.