Can you really have Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk without the angsty rape scene? American opera director Francesa Zambello managed to keep this one surprisingly tame -- OC was in the house at Scala two summers past for Richard Jones's production, which touted the rapists in rubber pig masks ejaculating white foam all over Aksinya. Hmmmm....
Zambello revisited Lady Macbeth for the Opera Australia a second time (her first production was in 2002) in a revised, re-tuned production.
Jacqueline Dark's Aksinya takes a beating from that hawt Aussie chorus, whose apparent direction from Zambello was something like, "Ok guys, just look really hawt and grab your junk a lot. Yeah, perfect". Works for us!
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(Above: Bonus image of Sergei doing Katerina)