Hi Grainger,
I hope that you are in a bad mood now...
cause I digged up some facts about the opera while reading an episode in Solomon Volkow's biography of Schosta! (the book was signed by Schosta himself to make sure the truth would reach the Western part of the world!)
Episode one - Schostakovich is declared a genius 1935 after his "Lady Macbeth" at the Metropolitan!
"Lady Macbeth" was a tremendous success for being contemporary music.
The opera was performed 36 times in Leningrad during 5 months after it's premiere 1934 and performed 94 times in Moscow.
Immediately, after the opera was shown in Stockholm, Prague, London, Zürich and Copenhagen; Toscanini added parts of it to his repertoire.
The American premiere under Arthur Rodzinsky made a very strong impression, Virgil Thomsons article in the "Modern Music" (1935) bore the title "Socialism at the Metropolitan!"
Schostakovich was declared a genius!
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Episode two - Personal disaster for Dmitrij ... 1936 after performance of "Lady Macbeth".
Schostakovich gets a warning in the "Prawda".... (episode two coming soon!)