«Sand a woman is vulnerable, everyone feels empathy and compassion. If she is vulnerable, but also a murderer…”. Sara Jakubiak (“Giakùbiak” in America, “Iacubiak” in our country) goes straight to the heart of the problem posed byinterpretation by Katerina Izmajlovathe protagonist of A lady Macbeth from the Mcensk district.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s scandalous opera will open the season at the Teatro alla Scala on 7 Decemberwith Riccardo Chailly on the podium and directed by Vasily Barkhatov.
Before the Prima della Scala 2025: Sara Jakubiak is Katerina Izmajlova
She is not worried about having to sing in Russian despite being American (“I come from Michigan, where your new Pope studied”), nor about facing the legendary performance of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan (“It’s the culmination of a lot of work, it’s nice to have achieved it only thanks to commitment”): the real challenge is to convey the complexity of the character. «In certain moments she is a tiger who comes out of the cage and strikes, then she falls in love and would be willing to do anything… However, I can understand her: she has been abused, she doesn’t count for anything socially, she lacks freedom… And in the end she gets it, freedom, even if in the saddest condition».
Sara Jakubiak, 47 years old. Born in Michigan but educated at Yale, she is in great demand internationally for high-drama roles (Photo: Curtis Brown).
A proto-feminist.
Someone claims it, but it’s not my reading: Katerina is driven by burning passions, her actions are a reflection of this.
There’s a sex scene at the end of the first act: awkward?
No, the director approaches it in a creative way that I really appreciate. The most “uncomfortable” scene is the one in which I am tormented and tortured by women: I find making people suffer for a long time so unacceptable that I had to concentrate enormously to interpret it. In the past on stage I have been naked, raped, killed, asked to perform physically demanding actions, but nothing compares.
Is there any aspect in which you recognize yourself in Katerina Izmajlova?
In mistakes. It happens to anyone.
Has he committed many?
We must commit them! And learn the lesson… If it’s always good, what kind of existence is it? The human condition needs good and evil, right and wrong: to understand the right, I must have experienced the wrong. Of course, you don’t need to become Lady Macbeth and kill someone! (smiles)
Any mistakes you can share?
Oh, that would be too many! (think about it) Maybe having chosen English literature without understanding that my path was music. Or maybe a toxic relationship, letting myself be emotionally abused.
A lady Macbeth from the Mcensk districtthe scandalous opera
A bit like in the work which, although composed at the beginning of the 1930s, is modern in its description of relationships.
It is modern because the protagonist takes matters into her own hands (in the wrong way, of course), even though she dies, in reality, she is the winner. But it is modern above all for its underlying theme: Shostakovich said he wrote it to remove the mask from tyranny, to denounce dictators and horrendous rulers. This is why Stalin didn’t like him, because he made fun of the power system. And tyranny still exists, there are wars going on. There aren’t many “negative” or controlling heroines in opera. The real Lady Macbeth comes to mind (from Verdi’s Macbeth, ed), Puccini’s Turandot, Strauss’s Salome and Elektra, which I know well: I was in the London 2024 production, but in the role of Chrysothemis, the good sister… She reminds me of my grandmother.
Your grandmother?
Yes, for the desire to move forward despite adversity, to overcome a terrible past. Seeing her mother die young had given her an urge to live, to have children (she had six, six girls). He defeated cancer several times, yet he repeated: “I will live to be one hundred.” And so it was. Indirectly, it influenced my vocation.
In what sense?
Raised on a farm, she married a businessman, deciding that a major part of her daughters’ education would be music. He had bought a piano, they also played guitar, flute, clarinet. In short, a small family orchestra! And my mother was talented: upon returning from mass (they were devout Catholics), she would play the hymns she had just heard by ear. She didn’t make it a profession, she was a housemaid, while dad worked in the factory.
Sara Jakubiak in rehearsal with the director Vasily Barkhatov, 42 years old, and the tenor Yevgeny Asimov, 58 (Photo: Getty Images/Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla Scala).
And when did you understand that for you, instead, it would be the path? You never really understand. You wonder, “Oh, will this be the last rerun? Will they hire me in the future?” You have these doubts because the world of entertainment is constantly changing, directors demand intense physical performances, performances are broadcast in high definition and opera is not exactly an art for close-ups.
But the initial steps?
During my bachelor’s degree I was in the “music education” program and was thinking about teaching. After my master’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music (I remained convinced I would become a teacher), I won a scholarship to Yale: I would never have been able to afford the tuition coming from the working class. There were performance courses, and that’s where it all started. I found an agent, I started getting booked in the United States, I moved to the Frankfurt Opera which has a project for young talents, and – step by step – here we are!
There is also sport at a semi-professional level in its history.
Yes, softball, a kind of baseball with bigger balls. We traveled a lot, won tournaments.
Have you learned things that are useful to you today?
The importance of training, of hard commitment. And teamwork: each in their own place on the pitch, but with the same objective. Staying “on the ground”, well rooted, ready to move here and there… It’s the same on stage.
And how are you “rooted” in life?
When I come home, I like to cook, clean, do the most boring household chores. Meditation no, no! I’m not a patient. (smiles)
Where did she settle? I have an apartment in Berlin and one in New York with my partner. He is a physicist and belonging to different fields works well, increases mutual curiosity. We have two cats, which we adore.
What are they called?
Coco and Bandit: a real bandit, a thief of love, steals my heart.
Sex and blood for a political masterpiece
Dmitri Shostakovichwho passed away exactly 50 years ago, was inspired in 1930 by A Lady Macbeth from the Mcensk districtthe novel by Nikolai Leskov (defined by Leo Tolstoy as “the writer of the future”), adapting the libretto with Aleksandr Prejs. Behind the melodrama, there was the condemnation of the patriarchal society of the countryside, when serfdom was still in force (abolished in 1861).
The story, in brief: Katerina Izmajlova was forced to marry the son of a landowner and is also the sexual prey of her father-in-law. Who will discover his passion for a boy and end up poisoned with a mushroom soup. The woman will then also free herself from her husband, but will be discovered and sentenced to forced labor together with her partner. Another negative male figure, who during the move to Siberia will prefer a younger girl to her: Katerina will kill her by dragging her with her into the icy waters of the river. Stalin attended a performance with annoyance in 1936 and, immediately afterwards, a sting came out in Pravda: “Chaos instead of music”.