Getting into his grandfather's pottery workship at night, a little boy finds an unusually large vase. Fascinated, the child feels the still-warm material, which - whether by a miracle ot the hand of a magician, who knows? - at once changes into a magnificent piece of Chinese porcelain. Presently,...
At first glance, the title of Shostakovich’s opera seems to speak for itself: Katherina, neglected and unhappy in her marriage, commits the most heinous crime just like the Shakespearian Lady Macbeth. But Nikolai Leskov’s short novel, which portrays Katherina as a monster, was only the starting...
