“The Cleveland Orchestra, on February 5 [1935], with Arthur Rodzinski conducting, will introduce to New York ‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk’, an opera by twenty-eight year-old Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.”
“Shostakovich completed the work in December, 1932. It is the first of a projected cycle of four operas in which the composer plans to trace the condition of women in Russia…”
As it turned out, Stalin hated the production and Shostakovitch was very uneasy for quite some time.
