Anti-formalist Rayok

Shostakovich enjoyed recognition from the Soviet officials in the same measure as being an object of the harshest reprimands that instilled fear for his own life.  This, to the beat of a regime that exercised its coercion, by making use of different degrees of violence and adopting mutating aesthetic postures over time. Likewise, the composer’s music positioned itself with respect to Stalinism: as satire in Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk (1934); as an aesthetic  model in Symphony No. 5 (1937); as a propagandist tool with The Fall of Berlin (1950) and as a declaration of his moral misery in Babi Yar (196

Anti-Formalist Rayok (also known as “Rayok”) is surely the least ambiguous of all: a short chamber opera composed in 1948 and performed clandestinely for family and close friends. Taken as a succession of wordy speeches at an imaginary conference of the most important representatives of Soviet arts, we hear the folkloric melodies Kalinka and Sulikó - the latter was a favourite of the genocidal Stalin -, which is a theme for a musical discourse with a clear element of buffo.  This amusing little jewel is performed as a complement to The Nose at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.

Satirical Cantata

Music by Dmitri Shostakóvich (1906-1975)

Season premiere at the Teatro Real

Artistic team

Stage Director | Johannes Stepanek

Chorus Director | Andrés Máspero

Bajo | Alexander Teliga 

Pianist | Judith Jauregui 

Soloist of Principal Chorus of the Teatro Real