Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Dmitri Shostakovich's opera, is staged at Teatro Costanzi, the main hall of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma at Piazza Beniamino Gigli 7, from May 14 to 22, 2027, for the first time in the theater's history. Opening night is Friday, May 14 at 20:00, followed by performances on Sunday the 16th at 16:30, Tuesday the 18th at 20:00, Thursday the 20th at 20:00 and Saturday the 22nd at 18:00. Get there by Metro A, Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera stop, or by the buses on Via Nazionale (H, 40, 60, 64, 70, 71, 170, 116T) and Via Depretis (70, 71). Tickets for individual shows of the 2026/2027 season are on sale from October 8, 2026. Prices are published on the theater's official website, and tickets are sold at the box office at Piazza Beniamino Gigli 1 and on the authorized presale network listed on the official Teatro dell'Opera di Roma website.

Language: in Italian with English surtitles.

It's the Komische Oper Berlin production directed by Barrie Kosky, with Juraj Valčuha conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro dell'Opera, the chorus prepared by Ciro Visco. Olesya Golovneva is Katerina, Dmitry Ulyanov is Boris. It's sung in the original language with Italian and English surtitles, and the theater warns that the production contains depictions of violence. To be clear: it's the most important title of the Costanzi season, because it fills a 90-year gap and because it comes with a staging that has already stirred debate across Europe.

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Costanzi in brief: dates, times, series and cast

The five performances of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Costanzi are on May 14, 16, 18, 20 and 22, 2027, with opening night at 20:00 in series A. Times change from night to night, so note them carefully.

The dates one by one

• Friday, May 14, 2027, at 20:00, opening night, series A.
• Sunday, May 16, 2027, at 16:30, series E.
• Tuesday, May 18, 2027, at 20:00, series B.
• Thursday, May 20, 2027, at 20:00, series C.
• Saturday, May 22, 2027, at 18:00, series D.

The credits

Conducted by Juraj Valčuha, directed by Barrie Kosky, chorus master Ciro Visco. Sets by Rufus Didwiszus, costumes by Victoria Behr, dramaturgy by Daniel Andrés Eberhard, lighting by Olaf Freese. Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, a Komische Oper Berlin production.

Characters and cast

• Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov: Dmitry Ulyanov.
• Zinovy Borisovich Izmailov: Ya-Chung Huang.
• Katerina Lvovna Izmailova: Olesya Golovneva.
• Sergei: Giorgi Sturua.
• A shabby peasant: Caspar Krieger.
• A priest: Valery Gilmanov.
• A police sergeant: Jerzy Butrin.
• Aksinya: Mirka Wagner.
• An old convict: Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev.
• Sonyetka: Susan Zarrabi.

Tickets

The theater set October 8, 2026 as the start of individual ticket sales for the 2026/2027 season, while subscriptions and other options follow their own calendars. For this title's prices, refer to the official show page.

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District: the opera and its history

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is an opera in four acts and nine scenes by Dmitri Shostakovich, with a libretto by Alexander Preis and the composer himself, based on Nikolai Leskov's novella of the same name. It premiered on January 22, 1934 at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad, and two days later in Moscow.

The success of the first two years

The opera, which the composer dedicated to his first wife, physicist Nina Varzar, was an immediate success: according to an account published in The Guardian, before its official condemnation it had been performed almost 200 times in the Soviet Union and had already been heard in Copenhagen, Prague, New York and London. It blends expressionism and verismo to tell the story of Katerina Izmailova, a lonely woman in 19th-century Russia who falls in love with one of her husband's workers and slides into a chain of crimes.

January 28, 1936

Shortly after Stalin attended a performance in Moscow, on January 28, 1936 Pravda published an unsigned article, Muddle Instead of Music, attacking the opera's musical language and stage content. More recent studies attribute it to journalist David Zaslavsky. Performances dwindled, and the title vanished from Soviet stages for decades. It's the opera Teatro dell'Opera calls Shostakovich's censored masterpiece.

Katerina Izmailova and the return of the original

In 1962 Shostakovich revised the opera under the title Katerina Izmailova, Op. 114, changing parts of the score and libretto. The new version premiered on December 26, 1962 at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow. After the composer's death the original 1934 version gradually returned to the international repertoire. In Russia it was restaged uncut in 2000 by Helikon Opera, directed by Dmitry Bertman.

The plot, without giving away the ending

Katerina is married to Zinovy, a provincial flour merchant, and is wasting away with boredom. Her father-in-law Boris accuses her of not giving the family an heir and threatens her should she take a lover. When Zinovy leaves on business, he makes her swear fidelity before an icon. The servant Aksinya tells her about the new worker, Sergei, a known seducer. From that meeting the mechanism starts that takes Katerina from desire to poison, and then all the way to Siberia. The rest you discover in the hall.

From Leskov's novella to the opera

The novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was published by Nikolai Leskov in 1865. In Italy the first translation appeared in 1969, in the collection Novelle published by Utet. Since then several standalone editions have come out, each with a different translator.

Katerina's story

In the novella Katerina Lvovna, young wife of a rich merchant's son, poisons her father-in-law, then kills her husband, and finally plots with her lover Sergei against a young cousin who is heir to the estate. Found out, the two are sentenced to hard labor. During the march to Siberia Sergei humiliates her by courting other convicts, especially the young Sonyetka, and the story ends on a frozen river.

What Shostakovich changes

The opera keeps the characters and the skeleton, but changes details and emphasis. One example is the convoy scene: in the novella it's Sergei and Sonyetka who mock Katerina, while other convicts reproach them for their cruelty, while in the opera all the women of the convoy make fun of her. It's the sign of a precise choice: Shostakovich makes the heroine a lone figure against everyone, and asks the audience to look at her with less distance than Leskov did. The same novella also inspired the 2016 film Lady Macbeth.

Dmitri Shostakovich, composer of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Dmitri Shostakovich was born in Saint Petersburg on September 25, 1906 and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. He's considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century. His relationship with Soviet power was troubled, with two official denunciations, in 1936 and 1948.

Training

He began studying piano at the urging of his mother, a pianist, and at nine he was already writing his first compositions. In 1919 he entered the Petrograd Conservatory, where he studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev and composition with Maximilian Steinberg. The conservatory's director, Alexander Glazunov, followed his progress closely. He became famous very young with his First Symphony and the opera The Nose.

The style

After a start shaped by the influence of Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Hindemith, he developed a hybrid style of which Lady Macbeth is the most representative example. He then moved toward a post-Romantic language, with the 1937 Fifth Symphony as its manifesto and Mahler and Mussorgsky among its references. He left 15 symphonies, six concertos, 15 string quartets, operas, ballets and a great deal of film music.

The price of fame

In public he always stayed loyal to the system: he held posts in arts institutions, joined the party in 1960 and became a member of the Supreme Soviet. Full rehabilitation came only after Stalin's death. Hearing Lady Macbeth knowing what it cost its author changes how you hear it: it's the music of a 27-year-old who didn't yet know he would have to learn to hide.

Barrie Kosky, director of Lady Macbeth at Costanzi

Barrie Kosky, born in Melbourne on February 18, 1967, is an Australian theater and opera director who from the 2012/2013 season was general manager and chief director of Komische Oper Berlin. At Teatro dell'Opera di Roma he has already staged The Magic Flute and Salome.

From Melbourne to Adelaide

The grandson of European Jewish emigrants, he studied piano and music history at the University of Melbourne, where in 1988 he staged Don Giovanni and Wedekind's Lulu plays. In 1990 he founded the Gilgul Theatre, which he led until 1997. In 1996, at 29, he was appointed director of the Adelaide Festival, the youngest in the festival's history.

Vienna and Germany

From 2001 to 2005 he was codirector of the Schauspielhaus in Vienna, where he directed among others a Medea nominated for the Nestroy Prize and an Incoronazione di Poppea with songs by Cole Porter. In 2005 he staged Lohengrin at the Vienna State Opera. In Germany he has worked in Essen, Bremen, Hanover, where his Janáček From the House of the Dead won the Faust prize and where he staged a complete Ring, Munich and Frankfurt.

Komische Oper

Before becoming its general manager, at Komische Oper he had staged Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, The Marriage of Figaro, Iphigénie en Tauride, Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, Rigoletto, Rusalka and a Magic Flute made with the company 1927. As general manager he brought rarely performed operettas back to the stage. The Lady Macbeth coming to Rome was born in that house, and brings Kosky's regular collaborators with it: all of them, set designer, costume designer, dramaturg and lighting designer, making their Costanzi debut.

Juraj Valčuha, Olesya Golovneva and the vocal cast

Juraj Valčuha, born in Bratislava in 1976, is music director of the Houston Symphony and returns to Costanzi after the 2024 Jenůfa. Olesya Golovneva and Dmitry Ulyanov, the two leads, both make their debut on the Rome stage.

Juraj Valčuha

He studied composition, conducting and cimbalom at the Bratislava Conservatory, then conducting in Saint Petersburg with Ilya Musin and at the Paris Conservatory with János Fürst and Jorma Panula. After his years as an assistant in Montpellier he was principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2016 and music director of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples from 2016 to 2022, finishing with the Don Carlo that opened the 2022/2023 season. Since 2022 he has led the Houston Symphony, with a contract extended through the 2027/2028 season, and he's principal guest conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Roman audiences will also see him in December 2026 at Accademia di Santa Cecilia, with Ettore Pagano.

Olesya Golovneva, Katerina

A Russian soprano born in Pskov, she studied in Saint Petersburg and at the University of Music in Vienna with Robert Holl, graduating with honors. She debuted as the Queen of the Night in the Vienna State Opera ensemble, then built her career in German-speaking theaters: Tatiana in Onegin in Hamburg, Helsinki, Cologne and Wiesbaden, Donna Anna, Maria Stuarda, Gilda, Elisabetta, Luisa Miller and Violetta at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Natasha in War and Peace, Anna Bolena, Lucia and Vitellia in Cologne, and Mimì, Rusalka, Elisabetta and Desdemona in Frankfurt. In 2024 she debuted as Turandot in Wiesbaden. She has sung Káťa Kabanová and the three heroines of Il trittico in Hamburg, and Rusalka at Teatro Real and in Valencia. Her Cologne Rusalka was nominated for the Faust prize.

Dmitry Ulyanov, Giorgi Sturua, Ya-Chung Huang

Dmitry Ulyanov is Boris, the father-in-law, who in the first scene threatens Katerina and makes her swear fidelity. Giorgi Sturua is Sergei, the seductive worker. Ya-Chung Huang is Zinovy, the husband: the Costanzi audience already hears him at the season opening, as Sellem in The Rake's Progress.

A curious fact about Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District had never been staged at Teatro Costanzi before May 2027, 93 years after the Leningrad premiere. For a theater that calls itself the cradle of 20th-century music theater, it's a weighty absence.

The explanation lies partly in the opera's own history. After the 1936 Pravda article the title vanished from Soviet stages, and when Shostakovich took it up again, in 1962, he did so in a revised version and under another name, Katerina Izmailova. The original 1934 version only came back into steady circulation after the composer's death. For decades, in short, anyone wanting to stage this opera first had to decide which opera to stage.

The second curious fact concerns the pair bringing it to Rome. Barrie Kosky and Juraj Valčuha aren't new to Costanzi, but by different routes: Kosky staged The Magic Flute and Salome there, and Valčuha conducted the 2024 Jenůfa. The theater reunites them on a title that, in the foundation's words, was born under the sign of scandal like Strauss's Salome, which Kosky had already brought to Rome. If you saw that Salome, you know what to expect: no caution.

Teatro Costanzi: the hall of Shostakovich's first time

Teatro Costanzi today seats 1,560, across the orchestra level, three tiers of boxes, the balcony and the gallery, under a dome frescoed by Annibale Brugnoli. At its opening, in 1880, it could hold up to 2,212 spectators.

A horseshoe sounding board

Domenico Costanzi, a builder, entrusted the design in 1879 to Milanese architect Achille Sfondrini, a theater specialist, who put acoustics first: the horseshoe hall was conceived as a sounding board, and construction took just 18 months. For a score like Shostakovich's, with orchestral interludes between scenes, the shape of the hall matters.

The sections

The theater's price list distinguishes premium and regular orchestra seats, orchestra-level boxes and boxes on the three tiers, central and side, split into front and back seats, the balcony and the gallery. The updated seating plan is published in the maps section of the website: it's the first thing to check before choosing.

Front and back box seats

Between a front and a back seat in the same box the price difference is large, and it reflects the view. In a staging like Kosky's, where the stage action is an essential part of the story, a back seat in a side box only works if you mainly want to listen. The foundation's full profile is on our page about Rome Opera House.

Something nobody tells you about Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

Teatro dell'Opera warns on its official page that the production contains depictions of violence: it's not a ritual formula, and should be taken seriously before buying a ticket for a teen or a group. The story is made of poison, murders and deportation, and Shostakovich sets it to music without any veil.

The second thing few people mention is that this opera was condemned for its content as well as its musical language: the Pravda article attacked the music as much as what was seen on stage. A staging that softens the rawness betrays the opera, and one that revels in it risks self-indulgence. Kosky, judging by his track record, doesn't soften.

The third concerns the language. It's sung in Russian, with Italian and English surtitles. If you don't know the plot, read it beforehand: in the most crowded scenes, with chorus and soloists together, the surtitles lag behind what's happening, and the staging doesn't wait.

Finally, the radio. Teatro dell'Opera states that Radio3 broadcasts all opera premieres at Costanzi live: if you can't get a seat for May 14, you can listen to the premiere from home.

My tip for Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

My tip for Lady Macbeth at Costanzi is to buy your ticket in the first days after October 8, 2026 and choose the Sunday, May 16 performance at 16:30. A title never staged here before draws opera lovers from all over Italy, and a Sunday afternoon leaves time to head home or have a relaxed dinner.

Second tip: prepare. An hour with a good recording and the plot in front of you is worth more than any listening guide in the hall. Shostakovich writes orchestral interludes between the scenes that comment on the action with almost cinematic ferocity, and recognizing them makes them far more powerful.

Third: choose a seat facing the stage. In a Kosky staging what happens on stage is part of the meaning, and side seats or back box seats cut off part of the show. Better a central gallery seat than a second-row side box.

Fourth: don't bring anyone who doesn't know what they're in for. The theater's warning about violence is there for a reason.

How to get to Teatro dell'Opera for Lady Macbeth

Teatro Costanzi is reached by Metro A, Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera stop, a few minutes' walk from Piazza Beniamino Gigli. It's the simplest way, and in the rain the driest.

By metro

Line A stops at Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera, in Piazza della Repubblica, from where you reach the theater in a few minutes. From Termini you can take the same line or walk.

By bus

The theater lists these lines:

• Via Nazionale: H, 40, 60, 64, 70, 71, 170, 116T.
• Via Depretis: 70, 71.
• Via Cavour: 16, 75, 84, 150 (holidays), 360, 590, 649, 714.
• Termini station: 16, 38, 75, 86, 90, 217, 310, 360, 649, 714.

By taxi

There's a taxi service for the audience at the theater entrance with Radio Taxi 6645, and during intermissions the house staff take bookings for the ride home. For bookings the theater also lists 06 6696. It's the option I recommend after the 20:00 performances.

By car

I'd advise against driving: the area between Via Nazionale, Via del Viminale and Termini is central and congested, and the theater doesn't list its own parking. If you're coming from out of town, leave the car at a park-and-ride along line A and continue by metro.

Another well-known fact, yet one rarely mentioned

Everyone knows the January 28, 1936 Pravda article struck Lady Macbeth. Few remember that until that day the opera was a success, with almost 200 performances in the Soviet Union and productions in Copenhagen, Prague, New York and London. The condemnation didn't hit an ignored work: it hit a triumph.

That's what makes the story instructive. An opera by a 27-year-old composer had conquered Leningrad and Moscow, crossed Soviet borders and reached America. Then Stalin attended a performance, and a few days later the party newspaper published an anonymous attack. Performances dropped, the title disappeared, and the second official denunciation, in 1948, would confirm how fragile its author's position was.

If you go to Costanzi in May, you hear the title that was condemned, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, and not Katerina Izmailova, the name under which the composer revived it almost 30 years later. The theater's poster also gives the Russian title, Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo Uyezda: the 1934 title.

There's a lesson for today's audience too. In that story, success and censorship were a few days apart, and the judgment of a single spectator was enough to change a masterpiece's fate.

House rules and times for the Lady Macbeth evening

At Teatro dell'Opera di Roma dark attire is appreciated at premieres, so keep it in mind for the May 14 Lady Macbeth opening. For the other performances the theater doesn't list a dress code.

Cloakroom and phones

Umbrellas, hats, bags, helmets, cameras and recording devices must be left in the cloakroom. In the hall phone use, photos with or without flash and any recording are forbidden, and food and drinks are allowed only in the theater's bars.

Latecomers

Once the show has started you can't get into the orchestra seats or the numbered seats in the balcony and gallery: latecomers can wait in the orchestra-level foyer. In an opera divided into scenes, linked by orchestral interludes, getting back in isn't easy.

The right photo to take at Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

At Costanzi you can't take photos in the hall: the right photo of your Lady Macbeth is taken outside, in Piazza Beniamino Gigli, before going in. It's the theater's rule, and it applies during the applause too.

The square is the one onto which Marcello Piacentini, with the renovation that followed the City's purchase in 1926, moved the theater's entrance, to make room for the audience crowding under the arcades. In May the days are long: for the Sunday 16:30 performance the facade is in full light, and for the 20:00 ones you arrive as the sun goes down and leave with the theater lit up. That's when the photo works best.

Photograph the people, not the building. The group of friends with programs in hand, the couple at the entrance, the student who found a ticket at the last minute: those are the pictures you'll look at again. Brugnoli's dome and the great crystal chandelier are for taking home in your eyes. If you want to see them at leisure, book one of the guided tours the theater runs.

Some important events that happened here in history

Teatro Costanzi opened on November 27, 1880 with Rossini's Semiramide, in the presence of Umberto I and Queen Margherita, and took the name Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 1946. In between came two world premieres that made history.

Dates to remember

• 1879: Domenico Costanzi commissions the design from Achille Sfondrini.
• November 27, 1880: opening with Semiramide.
• May 17, 1890: world premiere of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.
• January 14, 1900: world premiere of Puccini's Tosca.
• 1912: management of the theater passes to soprano Emma Carelli.
• 1926: the City buys the theater, which becomes Teatro Reale dell'Opera, with Marcello Piacentini's renovation.
• February 27, 1928: second inauguration with Boito's Nerone.
• 1935: the permanent chorus is founded at Tullio Serafin's wish.
• 1946: the name becomes Teatro dell'Opera di Roma.
• 1958: Piacentini's last makeover ahead of the 1960 Olympics.
• May 14, 2027: first staging of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.

The last line is the one that matters this season. The theater describes itself as the cradle of verismo opera and 20th-century music theater, and in 2026/2027 it devotes to the 20th century its opening with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Bluebeard's Castle with Anna Netrebko and this Shostakovich. 90 years after Pravda, Lady Macbeth joins the list.

Who has passed through Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, May 14 to 22, 2027

Teatro Costanzi has welcomed Pietro Mascagni, Giacomo Puccini and Ottorino Respighi, whom the theater names as the musicians who shaped its destiny, and King Umberto I with Queen Margherita at the 1880 opening. The list of conductors is as long as the history of 20th-century opera.

There's Emma Carelli, the soprano who from 1912 ran the Impresa Costanzi for 14 years and brought La fanciulla del West, Turandot, Il trittico, Parsifal and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes to Rome. There's Tullio Serafin, who in 1935 wanted a permanent chorus. There are the conductors the theater remembers in the history of its orchestra: Victor de Sabata, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Maria Giulini, Karl Böhm, Zubin Mehta, Georg Solti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Mstislav Rostropovich and Riccardo Muti.

Among the house directors is Barrie Kosky, with The Magic Flute and Salome. And there's Juraj Valčuha, who conducted Jenůfa here in 2024.

In the same season Costanzi welcomes Anna Netrebko, Cecilia Bartoli with Il barbiere di Siviglia on May 27, 2027, Jessica Pratt in Lucia di Lammermoor and Nicola Alaimo in I due Foscari. Olesya Golovneva and Dmitry Ulyanov add their names in May, at their debut.

Around Costanzi: Repubblica, Viminale, Monti

Teatro Costanzi stands between Via Nazionale, Via del Viminale and Via Depretis, a few minutes' walk from Piazza della Repubblica and Termini station. If you arrive an hour early, you're surrounded by part of late 19th-century and ancient Rome.

Piazza della Repubblica and the Baths

From the metro you come out in Piazza della Repubblica, with the remains of the Baths of Diocletian. Toward Termini is Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, home of the Museo Nazionale Romano. For the Tuesday or Thursday performance, an afternoon at the museum and the opera in the evening go together without taking any transit.

Toward Monti and Santa Maria Maggiore

Walking down Via Nazionale the Monti neighborhood begins, with its narrow streets and evening life. Past Via Cavour, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is a good quarter of an hour's walk away.

Teatro Nazionale

At Via del Viminale 51 is Teatro Nazionale, the foundation's second hall, born in 1925 as the Supercinema. In the same days as Lady Macbeth, from May 19 to 26, 2027, it hosts the world premiere of Code: Unknown by Nicola Sani and Franco Ripa di Meana: two weeks of 20th-century and contemporary opera a few steps apart.

Where to eat before and after Lady Macbeth

Around Teatro dell'Opera the options are concentrated on Via Nazionale, Via del Viminale, the streets toward Termini and the Monti neighborhood. In the theater food and drink are allowed only in the bars inside, so plan dinner outside.

Before and after

For the 20:00 performances you can eat early, around 18:30, near Via Nazionale: the theater is a few minutes away on foot. For Sunday at 16:30 and Saturday at 18:00 dinner comes afterward, and Monti is the natural choice, with osterias, wine bars and pizzerias a few steps away.

The rule of thumb

I don't name places, because they change hands more often than productions change directors. The rule is simple: avoid places with a menu in five languages on the door around Termini, and venture a few streets toward Monti. At the same price, you'll feel the difference.

Accessibility and teens at Lady Macbeth

For Teatro Costanzi the theater lists a tour route accessible to people with walking difficulties, except for a few spots such as the Royal Box and the gallery. For performances, the Lady Macbeth page gives no specific information on accessible seats.

My advice is to contact the box office before buying, at 06 48160255 or 06 4817003 or ufficio.biglietteria@operaroma.it, explaining your needs. If you have limited mobility, avoid the gallery, which the theater itself excludes from the accessible route.

As for teens: the violence warning leaves no room for doubt. It's an opera for adults, and for teenagers already used to opera and prepared on the subject. It's not the title to bring a young person to Costanzi with for the first time.

Frequently asked questions about Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Rome

When is Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth on at Costanzi?

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is on at Teatro Costanzi from May 14 to 22, 2027: opening night Friday the 14th at 20:00, then Sunday the 16th at 16:30, Tuesday the 18th and Thursday the 20th at 20:00, and Saturday the 22nd at 18:00. It's the first time the opera has been staged in that theater.

When do tickets go on sale?

Tickets for individual shows of the 2026/2027 Teatro dell'Opera di Roma season, Lady Macbeth included, are on sale from October 8, 2026. They're sold at the box office at Piazza Beniamino Gigli 1 and on the authorized presale network listed on the official website, where prices are also published.

Who conducts and who directs?

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Costanzi is conducted by Juraj Valčuha, music director of the Houston Symphony, and directed by Barrie Kosky. It's a Komische Oper Berlin production, with the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and the chorus prepared by Ciro Visco.

Who are the leads?

In the May 2027 Lady Macbeth Olesya Golovneva is Katerina Izmailova and Dmitry Ulyanov is her father-in-law Boris, both making their Costanzi debut. Ya-Chung Huang is her husband Zinovy and Giorgi Sturua is Sergei. The cast also includes Mirka Wagner, Susan Zarrabi and Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev.

What language is it sung in?

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is sung in Russian, the original language, with Italian and English surtitles. Still, read the plot beforehand: in the densest choral scenes the surtitles struggle to keep up with the action.

Is it suitable for teens?

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma warns that the Lady Macbeth production contains depictions of violence. The story includes poisonings, murders and deportation to Siberia: it's an opera for adults and for well-prepared teenagers, not a title for a first approach.

How do you get to Teatro Costanzi?

Teatro Costanzi, at Piazza Beniamino Gigli 7, is reached by Metro A, Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera stop, or by the buses on Via Nazionale (H, 40, 60, 64, 70, 71, 170, 116T) and Via Depretis (70, 71). There's a taxi service for the audience at the entrance.

Can you listen to the premiere on the radio?

Yes, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma states that Radio3 broadcasts all opera premieres at Costanzi live, so that includes the Lady Macbeth premiere on Friday, May 14, 2027 at 20:00.

Final tip on Lady Macbeth

If in May 2027 you can afford just one evening at Costanzi, spend it here. Not because it's the most beautiful opera of the season, but because it's the one Rome had never seen, conducted by someone who knows the 20th century and staged by a director who sweetens nothing. Buy early, read the plot, sit facing the stage and be ready to come out shaken. That's exactly what Shostakovich wanted.

Article written by the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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