Title: Wonderful opera! Unacceptable cuts!
Product review: Shostakovitch's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a masterpiece. A previous movie had been made of it, less effective than this one. Petr Weigl film is nice to watch but has a major drawback: more than 50 minutes of the score are cut. Whichever may have been the rationale for such choice, it is hardly understandable. Due to some of the cuts, the sequence of the plot even becomes somewhat strange because you feel that something must surely be missing in the action. Leaving out scenes like the Boris' ghost scene is unforgivable - this scene clearly shows that Katerina is haunted by the spirit of the man she killed (establishing the connection with Shakespeare's Macbeth and Verdi's opera). So, to me, due maily to the cuts but also to some dubious director's choices, this movie rates very low. Unfortunate, but true, considering that it could easily have been otherwise. Respecting the whole score, for instance, would have done a much better job.
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