Shostakovich The Bedbug

Composers: Shostakovich
Compositions: The Bedbug, Op. 19, Love and Hate, Op. 38
Performers: Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Mark Fitz-Gerald, Mannheim Opera Choir
Catalogue Number: NAXOS 8574100

A year after his operatic treatment of Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Nose, Shostakovich wrote the incidental music for a play, The Bedbug, by Vladimir Mayakovsky, which premiered at Moscow’s Meyerhold Theatre in 1929, with Vsevolod Meyerhold himself directing. A satire set in the present and 50 years later, in the futuristic world of 1979, it tells the story of a greedy provincial official, who – after dying in a fire at his wedding – is resurrected through science, bringing both...