The Taming of the Shrew by Shebalin, V. Y., ti. 14 feb. 2023, Fra (2022/2023), I regi av Irina Gaudasinskaya, Dirigent Dmitri Jurowski, Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, Novosibirsk, Russia

The Taming of the Shrew by Vissarion Shebalin is one of the best lyric-comic operas of the 20th century. Based on the famous comedy of the same name by the great British playwright William Shakespeare (1593), the opera reveals the fullness and integrity of such a feeling as love, shows the beauty and dignity of the human person in all its versatility. The plot circles around two characters: young and proud-hearted Katherine and Petruchio. Both of them have unconventional personalities outmatching their entourage in mind and spirit. Katherine is in the status of a “marriageable bride”. Her father is actively looking for suitors, but none is a match for her. Under the guise of obstinacy, she fights for the true, genuine feeling of love, her feminine dignity. In turn, Petruchio is a brave and courageous adventurer, audacious in his decisions. At the beginning of the action he sees in Katherine only the wealth that he will receive if he marries her. But later on, as the protagonists pass all the trials, they find themselves deeply in love with each other. The Taming of the Shrew is the only opera written by Vissarion Shebalin (1902-1963). The concept was conceived during the war in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), where the composer was evacuated to in 1941. The literary critic Abram Gozenbud, who worked at that time in Sverdlovsk as the literary director at the Musical Comedy Theater, took up the libretto of the opera. Gozenpud used to work as a translator of Shakespeare’s work, which benefited the libretto – he was able to preserve the traits and the spirit of the Shakespearian comedy. Shebalin liked the libretto very much, but the music was not written quickly, the opera was completed only in 1955. The Taming of the Shrew was first performed in a concert version by the Soviet Opera Ensemble of the All-Union Theater Society in 1955. The premiere took place on the stage on May 25, 1957 in Kuibyshev (now Samara). The Bolshoi Theater staged The Taming of the Shrew literally a month later; then the opera was staged in Leningrad, Kyiv and in many foreign theaters.