Night at the Opera
Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, was a hit in Russia until the night Stalin walked out on a Bolshoi performance. Then things soured in a hurry.
Brian Moynahan is the author of Leningrad: Siege and Symphony, a history of the World War II siege of Leningrad viewed through the lens of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony.