This film, directed by Edgardo Cozarinsky, is being shown at the Barbican until 5 March as part of the LSO Shostakovich season. Sorry, I don't have any other film credits. The film includes a complete performance of Benjamin Fleischmann's opera Rothschild's violin, which is also available on CD (BMG/RCA 09026-68434-2). (The actors in the filmed opera lip-synch.) Fleischmann: Rothschild's Violin (completed and orchestrated by Shostakovich) Bronza Sergei Leiferkus Marfa Maria Shaguch, soprano Rothschild Konstantin Pluzhnikov Ilya Levinsky Conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra The film tells the story of how the opera Rothschild's violin was conceived, written, completed and performed. It begins with the intensely sympathetic relationship between Shostakovich and his student Fleischmann at the St Petersburg Conservatory. Fleischmann is troubled by the impossibility of "truth in the face of power" and sees music as the only way to speak the truth. He says this in a discussion of Boris Godunov, and there is a strong suggestion that he himself is a holy fool, with the implict question whether he himself can survive in a society without faith. Fleischmann starts to write an opera based on the Chekhov story Rothschild's violin, and continues to do so through the start of the war, the Nazi invasion and the siege of Leningrad. He manages to send a draft to Shostakovich, in internal exile in Samara. Fleishmann, who joined the civilian brigades, is lost in the fighting and Shostakovich completes the opera respectfully. He defends it in the face of criticism from the ministry of culture after the war, and a brief coda notes that it was performed once in 1968 and banned the next day as Zionist propaganda. Shostakovich's negotiation of the need for truth in the face of power is central, and the wider aspects of his (fairly incredible) musical life are hinted at with elegant economy. For example, when the sinisterly jovial minister tells him to forget about the "Jewish opera", Shostakovich's response is both restrained and truthful. He says calmly that it is a Russian opera, based on a story by the Russian writer Chekhov. When the minister won't have it, Shostakovich withdraws seamlessly into the ironic carapace that produced the tenth symphony. The actor playing Shostakovich is superb, and deeply sympathetic. Unlike Hugh Whitemore's Masterclass, which deals with the same topic, once the big theme is set out, there is comparatively little talk, but a lot of music. Most of what talk there is seems to be extracted from letters between Fleischmann and Shoskakovich. (Shostakovich's inner monologue as he reflects on the harm done by western fellow travellers in the early 1950s is also presented as a letter to Fleischmann.) The film is carried by the expressive powers of the actors, the music, and the sense of time and place. This is evoked by some beautiful cinematography (with Taillinn standing in for Leningrad) and skillful use of newsreel film, with lots of shots of jolly Joe Stalin. The opera itself is filmed complete, in Hungary, with a different crew and stunning picture-postcard effects of fall foliage, white flowers and sunsets. I really liked these, but I couldn't help thinking that not everyone might. It occurs more or less in the middle of the film, like the ballet in a 1950s musical, and similarly offers an artifical view of the themes of the main plot. The story is very simple: Bronza, the coffin maker and leader of a band in a village Jewish community, leaves the band in a huff at a wedding and returns home to find that his wife is dying. He prepared to die himself, reflecting how his life preoccupied with profit (measured out in weddings and funerals) hasn't done him or anyone else any good. Rothschild, the flute-player from the band, comes to try to persuade him to return to play. Bronza sends him away, and a group of children hound him. Rothschild returns, and Bronza give him his violin. The opera ends with Rothschild playing beautifully and ecstatically in the countryside. The opera last about half an hour, and has a lot of traditional-sounding Jewish and Russian themes arranged to reflect the internal drama of the characters in a way remniscent of Janacek. (I assume Fleischmann also did the libretto.) The main character is Bronza, sung suitably heavily by Sergei Leiferkus. In a nice comic touch, the transition back to the main story is done with Shostakovich, imagining this final scene, opening his eyes to see a dreary group portrait of Soviet bigwigs, and quickly closing them again to return to the scene of Rothschild playing for a moment. He is in the anteroom of the ministry, waiting to be carpeted for defending the opera. There is a painful irony in the way that in the opera Bronza, though overwhelmed with pain himself, passes on the spirit of music to Rothschild, who is liberated by it, whereas in real life, Shostakovich has to use all his skill to preserve the work of the younger Fleischmann, to little effect at the time. Rothschild's violin reminded me of Theo Angelopoulos' Odysseus' gaze in the way it deals with the major events of history, and especially Stalinism and the oppressive use of power, in terms of personal emotions. But Odysseus' gaze focusses on the hopelessness of trying to recover a better version of history (because in the Balkans the past is always a means of oppression), whereas Rothschild's violin shows liberation through musical expression, and is ultimately exhilerating. Amazing guy, that Shostakovich.