Kerzhentsev arrived just when a storm broke in music. During the entire previous year, only three long-playing records with Soviet music had been issued, and only one was symphonic: the score of Dmitry Shostakovich (b. 1906) for Hamlet.As for opera, Shcherbakov had written to Stalin, Andreyev, and Zhdanov (January 11, 1936) that Leningrad’s Maly Opera Theater was, “in essence, the sole theater that vigorously and systematically is working out the extremely important problem of the Soviet theater—namely, the creation of a contemporary musical spectacle.” He cited Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, by Shostakovich; Quiet Flows the Don, by Ivan Dzerzhinsky (b. 1909); and two works by Valery Zhelobinsky (b. 1913). Shcherbakov proposed that the Leningrad theater be renamed the State New Academy Opera Theater, and that its personnel receive state awards and pay raises to the level of the Kirov Ballet. Stalin redirected Shcherbakov’s letter to Kerzhentsev.272 The Leningrad theater was not renamed, but its ambitious conductor, Samuil Samosud, was anointed a “people’s artist” of the RSFSR and got approval to showcase his theater at a festival in Moscow. On opening night, much of Moscow’s creative intelligentsia showed for Quiet Flows the Don, based on the novel by Sholokhov. The opera—a patriotic glorification of the Don Cossacks’ immutable spirit and readiness to defend the motherland—proved a crowd-pleaser, with its lyrical and accessible music. After the final act, Stalin edged forward in the imperial box, making himself visible, and applauded demonstratively.
Stalin summoned Samosud to his box, and the discussion ended up lasting two hours; TASS distributed an account, heralding the advent of a Soviet opera repertoire. On January 17, 1936, Stalin ordered the director of the Bolshoi to stage its own production of Quiet Flows the Don, and the director decided to stage all the Samosud works, engaging Fyodor Lopukhov as principal dancer (he had danced the operas in Leningrad). The Bolshoi opened with Lady Macbeth, which was easier to mount than the other two. On January 26, Stalin and entourage attended. Unlike Quiet Flows the Don, Shostakovich’s music was subversive of operatic convention, with discord and hyper‐naturalistic portrayals of rape and murder. Stalin exited before the final curtain. This afforded Kerzhentsev a chance to establish his authority as the head of the new committee, at the expense of the existing culture power brokers, above all Shcherbakov. An unsigned denunciation, “A Muddle Instead of Music,” appeared in Pravda (January 28). (Kerzhentsev was the likely author, not Stalin, as rumored.)273 Only a short while before, Pravda had been over the top in praising the same opera. Even though Samosud had originated the production of the Shostakovich opera, the dictator had seen the Bolshoi version. He named him artistic director of the Bolshoi effective immediately.274
Shumyatsky, who remained head of Soviet cinema (and became Kerzhentsev’s second deputy), learned that Stalin viewed the Pravda article as “programmatic,” a demand “not for rebuses and riddles,” but music accessible to the masses, citing the “realistic music” of great Soviet films, especially Jolly Fellows, in which “all the songs are good, simple, melodic.”275 The “signal” got across. (“Don’t you read the papers?” a voice from the audience shouted at a speaker during a meeting of the Moscow Artists’ Union, referring to the denunciation of Shostakovich.)276 Shostakovich inveigled an audience with Kerzhentsev (February 7), and accepted “the majority” of the criticisms. Kerzhentsev advised the composer to travel around villages and acquaint himself with the folk music of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, and Georgia, as Rimsky-Korsakov had once done. Shostakovich promised to do so, while noting that composers would appreciate a meeting with Stalin.277 The press launched a vicious campaign against “formalists,” which targeted not only Shostakovich but also Eisenstein and theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, leaders of the 1920s avant-garde. Kerzhentsev soon took the initiative to purge avant-garde works in museums.278
